Android

Back Up Android Photos and Videos to a Computer (Windows, Mac and the adb Way)

A cable and the right USB mode is all Windows needs. Macs need a little help since Google retired its own transfer app. Here is each route, the folders that hold more than DCIM/Camera, the one setting that leaves originals in the cloud instead of on the phone, and a quick count to prove the copy.

All My Cameras

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Plug the phone into a Windows PC, unlock it, set the USB mode to File Transfer and copy the DCIM folder. On a Mac, Image Capture can import camera photos, and for everything else you need a third-party MTP app or Google's own adb tool. Whichever route you take, check first that the originals are actually on the phone, and copy more than just the camera folder.

Before you copy: are the originals on the phone?

If you use Google Photos and have ever tapped Free up space, it removed the phone's copies of everything already backed up. Those photos still show in the Google Photos app, but they are streamed from Google, and a cable copy will not find them. For those, you need a Google Takeout export instead: see our guide to Takeout split into many zip files.

A quick test: open your phone's Files app (not Google Photos) and look in DCIM/Camera. If last year's photos are not there, they are only in the cloud.

Where Android keeps photos and videos

FolderWhat is usually in it
DCIM/CameraThe phone camera's photos and videos
Other DCIM subfoldersSome camera companion apps save their exports here
PicturesScreenshots, edited images and images saved by apps, often in their own subfolders
MoviesScreen recordings and videos saved by apps
DownloadAnything downloaded from the browser or chat apps

If you use the phone as a remote and download clips from a drone, action camera or 360 camera through the maker's app, those exports can live outside DCIM/Camera. Copy the whole DCIM, Pictures and Movies folders rather than picking one.

Windows: File Transfer and File Explorer

Google's own steps:

  1. Unlock the phone and connect it with a USB cable.
  2. Tap the "Charging this device via USB" notification.
  3. Under "Use USB for", choose File Transfer.
  4. Open the phone in File Explorer and drag the folders to your PC or external drive.
  5. Eject the phone in Windows before unplugging.

Copy into a new, empty folder named for the date, for example Phone/2026-10-10. Do not drop the phone's folders onto an older backup: phone files have predictable names and you risk overwriting.

The Microsoft Photos app's Import function also works and can sort by date, but it only picks up photos and videos it recognises. File Explorer copies everything.

Mac: Image Capture, OpenMTP or Smart Switch

Google's Android File Transfer app for Mac is no longer offered, and Google's help page on USB transfers only covers Windows and Chromebook. The working options:

Image Capture (built in)

Set the phone's USB mode to PTP instead of File Transfer. In PTP mode the phone presents itself as a camera, and Image Capture on the Mac lists its photos and videos. Choose a folder on your drive in the Import To menu and click Download All.

The limit: PTP shows camera media, so screenshots, downloads and app folders may not appear.

OpenMTP (free, open source)

OpenMTP is a free, open-source MTP client for Mac that shows the phone's whole storage in a two-pane file browser. Leave the phone in File Transfer mode, then copy DCIM, Pictures and Movies across.

Samsung phones

Samsung's Smart Switch for Windows and Mac makes full backups of Galaxy phones, photos included. It is a backup to restore to a phone, not a folder of photos you browse, so treat it as an extra rather than your photo archive.

The adb way: fastest, keeps dates, works the same on every computer

Android's own developer tool, adb, copies folders over USB and can keep each file's original timestamp. It needs a one-off setup:

  1. Download SDK Platform-Tools from Google and unzip it.
  2. On the phone, enable Developer options (tap Build number seven times in Settings, About phone), then turn on USB debugging.
  3. Connect the phone and accept the prompt to allow this computer.

Then, from the platform-tools folder (Mac shown; on Windows use adb.exe and a Windows path):

DEST="$HOME/Backups/Phone/2026-10-10"
mkdir -p "$DEST"

./adb devices
./adb pull -a /sdcard/DCIM "$DEST/"
./adb pull -a /sdcard/Pictures "$DEST/"
./adb pull -a /sdcard/Movies "$DEST/"

The -a flag keeps each file's timestamp and mode. That matters later: a folder of files that all show today's date is much harder to sort.

When you are done, turn USB debugging off again.

Without a cable: Quick Share to a Windows PC

Google's old Android File Transfer address for Mac now redirects to its Quick Share for Windows page, which tells you where Google is pointing people. Quick Share sends photos and videos from an Android phone to a nearby PC over the air. Google lists the requirements as a 64-bit version of Windows 10 or later (Windows 11 or later on ARM-based PCs), with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth turned on. Samsung PCs use Samsung's own Quick Share app instead.

It is convenient for a day's shots. For a full backup it has two drawbacks: you pick files by hand, so it is easy to miss some, and you do not get the phone's folder structure. Use the cable routes above for the complete copy, and Quick Share for quick top-ups in between.

Check that everything came across

Count what the phone has and what you copied. With adb:

./adb shell 'find /sdcard/DCIM -type f | wc -l'
find "$DEST/DCIM" -type f | wc -l

The two numbers should match. Then open a handful of the longest videos and play them to the end. For a stronger check between your first and second copy on drives, use the checksum routine in verified copy vs drag and drop.

Name clashes and motion photos

  • Names. Pixel phones name files with the date and time, for example PXL_20261010_093015123.jpg. Many other phones use a date-time pattern too, but not all. Keep each backup in its own dated folder anyway, and see a folder structure for photos from several cameras.
  • Motion photos. A Pixel motion photo is a single .MP.jpg file with the short video inside it. It copies as one file. Some apps only show the still, but nothing is lost.

After the copy

One copy on one drive is a start, not a backup. Make a second copy on a different drive, and keep one somewhere other than your desk. If you are clearing the phone to make room, delete only what both copies contain. If Google storage is the real problem, see Google storage full for what is actually using it.

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