Learn how to transfer photos and videos from your iPhone or iPad to an external drive, SSD, or hard disk to back up your media or free up local space.
What you need
- iPhone or iPad (obviously)
- External hard drive, SSD, or thumb drive formatted as APFS, macOS Extended (HFS+), exFAT, FAT, or FAT32. The external drive shouldn’t require more than 4.5 watts of power, as that’s all the iPhone or iPad’s port can provide.
- An appropriate USB-C/Lightning cable, hub, or adapter to connect the external drive to your iPhone or iPad.
- If you use iCloud Photos, make sure the original full-quality images and videos are downloaded to your iPhone or iPad. By default, your iPhone or iPad stores smaller optimized versions of these media, so head to iOS Settings > iCloud > Photos and select Download and Keep Originals.
Transfer iPhone photos and videos to an external drive
While you can import photos from external cameras or an iPhone directly to the iPad Photos app, external storage devices you connect to your iPhone or iPad don’t show up in the iOS Photos app. Therefore, you’ll have to use Apple’s Files app along with the Photos app. The process involves copying the pictures to the Files app and then exporting them to an external SSD, hard disk, or flash drive.
1) Open the Photos app on your iPhone or iPad and tap Select. Now, run your finger across all the pictures and videos you want to back up to external storage. If your pictures are organized in albums, you can tap Select, followed by Select All.
2) With pictures and video clips selected, tap the share button and choose Save to Files.
Go to the On My iPhone or On My iPad section, tap the three dots icon to create a new folder inside, and hit Save. Adding to a new folder makes it easy to select them all later.
3) Connect your external storage device to your iPhone or iPad’s USB-C or Lightning port. Then open the Files app and tap Browse until you see the Locations section and find the external drive there. If you don’t see the external drive, re-open the Files app or connect the drive again.
4) Next, go to the folder in the Files app where your photos and videos are saved. Tap the three dots menu button and tap Select. Then, hit Select All or select the files manually, and tap the folder icon.
5) Tap the back button in the top left until you see all the storage locations, and select the external drive. Use the three-dot menu button to create a new folder, and tap Copy. The selected pictures and videos will copy over from the internal storage to the external drive.
Use third-party apps to move iPhone photos to an external drive
You can move images and videos directly from the iOS Photos app to the connected storage device using third-party apps. We’ll be using the Copy That app by OWC for the steps below, but you should also check if your thumb drive or SSD maker has an official iOS app, and if they do, you can use that to import from Photos to the external drive.
1) Download the Copy That app on your iPhone or iPad from the Apple App Store. The app is free to use, but an optional in-app upgrade ($2.99) unlocks additional features.
2) Connect the thumb drive, solid-state drive, or hard disk to your iPhone or iPad. Then, open the Files app and go to the locations section to make sure the external drive shows up there.
3) Open the Copy That app and tap Select a destination under the “Copy Where?” heading.
Tap Browse, select your external storage device from the Files app interface, and then tap Open > Done.
4) Tap Photos Library under the “Copy What?” heading, select Photos, Videos, Screenshots, and Selfies as needed, and hit Done.
5) Finally, tap the blue Copy That → button, allow the app to access your photo library, and wait for the transfer to complete. If you’re copying a lot of files, stay in this app and don’t lock your device.
Once the transfer is complete, go to the Files app and select your external drive to ensure your media was moved to the new Copy That folder. By default, the app groups your photos into date-wise folders, but buying its subscription lets you customize folder organization.
Use your Mac or Windows PC to transfer everything
While the above two methods are direct, you can also go a different route and import iPhone photos to your Mac or Windows PC. From there, move them to an external drive.
If you use iCloud Photos or Google Photos
If you’ve already backed up your iPhone photos and videos to Apple’s or Google’s cloud photo storage, just download your entire iCloud Photos or Google Photos library to your Mac or PC and then transfer them to an external storage drive using macOS Finder or Windows File Explorer.