How to Transfer Files From iPhone to Laptop Quickly?

The cheapest of iPhones does not come cheap, and as such, a large number of people have the lowest possible storage on their iPhones. Most of us consume video on our devices and shoot pictures and videos of family and friends all the time. Even 1080p HD video takes up a lot of space, and with the camera improvements and 4K video-taking capabilities on the latest iPhones it is possible to fill up the storage of a brand-new iPhone in minutes, literally.

Everyone has at some point or the other faced the dreaded “Storage Almost Full” message on our iPhones. It comes at the most inopportune time and sometimes we can’t even take a single photo without first transferring some files from our iPhone to our laptop or desktop computer. Over the years, Apple has tried to keep the device storage amount as low as possible on the iPhone, choosing instead to manage the storage smartly through software. For photos and videos, they have optimized storage wherein a lower resolution photo is kept on the device and the full resolution photo rests in iCloud. Now, if you have a Mac and an iPhone, you can pay for iCloud storage and make do with a lower storage iPhone without possibly transferring videos ever since they will sync to the Mac for viewing and download anyway. However, if you do not have a Mac or you do not want to pay for iCloud storage and sync, you want to know how to transfer files from iPhone to a laptop so that you can keep your iPhone storage free.

• Best Solution To Transfer Files From iPhone To Laptop: Dr.Fone
• Transfer Files From iPhone To Laptop Using iTunes
• Transfer Files From iPhone To Laptop Using Dropbox
• Transfer Files From iPhone To Laptop Using Email

You may be interested in: Transfer Files from Phone to Laptop Without USB - A Detailed Guide

Best Solution To Transfer Files From iPhone To Laptop: Dr.Fone

Apple is building an ecosystem where it wants you to pay for services all the time. It wants you to subscribe to extra iCloud storage for things like syncing photos between Mac and iPhone if you have more than 5 GB of them. It wants you to pay for streaming music rather than transferring your music library from laptop to iPhone and listen away. Apple makes it easy to live without wires, but payment is needed every month for that. Furthermore, what happens when you want to use a Windows laptop with an iPhone? You cannot have iCloud Photo Library on Windows; you may only use your internet browser for that and the experience leaves a lot to be desired. Music and videos can be synced using iTunes, files can be shared using iTunes, but it is clunky and not optimal.

Dr.Fone - Phone Manager (iOS) is the best way to keep your media synced between your iPhone and laptop, be it a MacBook or a Windows laptop. It frees you from the shackles of iCloud. You can transfer your photos, music, videos from iPhone to laptop intuitively, and without iTunes. The software goes over and above media transfer and allows you to transfer contacts, SMS, and such as well. Dr.Fone - Phone Manager (iOS) is available on macOS and Windows both, so it does not matter if you have a Windows laptop or a MacBook.

What is special about Dr.Fone - Phone Manager (iOS) is its ability to read and maintain structure in your photos and music libraries on iPhone, so when you transfer photos and media to and fro you can have granular control over where you want to transfer files to and from. This is a unique feature allowing you to look into albums on your iPhone from your laptop and transfer what you need and supports live photos as well.

Dr.Fone - Phone Manager (iOS)

Transfer File to iPhone/iPad/iPod without iTunes

• Transfer contacts from iPhone to laptop
• Transfer SMS from iPhone to laptop
• Transfer music from iPhone to laptop
• Transfer photos from iPhone to laptop
• Transfer videos from iPhone to laptop 
• See which apps are installed on iPhone and delete if desired
• Many other useful things.

Available on: Windows Mac

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Step 1: Connect iPhone to a laptop using a USB cable

Step 2: Open Dr.Fone app on the laptop and click Phone Manager

Step 3: Click on desired file type to transfer such as music, photos, videos from the tabs

Step 4: Select your files to transfer from iPhone to laptop

Step 5: Right-click and Export them to your laptop.

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Transfer Files From iPhone To Laptop Using iTunes

iTunes may be deprecated on the latest version of macOS 10.15 Catalina, but it lives on in macOS 10.14 Mojave and on Windows laptops. iTunes is a comprehensive suite that you can use to manage your iPhone and transfer files from iPhone to a laptop.

Step 1: Download the latest version of iTunes for macOS 10.14 MacBook or Windows

Step 2: Connect your iPhone to a laptop using a USB cable and open iTunes

Step 3: Below the volume slider, click the small iPhone button

Step 4: You will now see a summary screen for your iPhone. To the left, select File Sharing

Step 5: Click on the app you want to transfer files from

Step 6: Use drag-and-drop to transfer files from iPhone to a laptop using iTunes.

If you are low on space, you can delete files from your iPhone from within this window after sending files from iPhone to a laptop.

Transfer Files From iPhone To Laptop Using Dropbox

Dropbox is a cross-platform app that allows you to access your files from anywhere and on any device. It runs on your laptop and your mobile devices, and you can use Dropbox to transfer files from iPhone to laptop wirelessly. The transfer happens over the internet, in this case, meaning, what you put in Dropbox on iPhone to transfer to a laptop is first uploaded over the internet to the Dropbox servers and then downloaded on your laptop by the Dropbox app, making the files available to you at both places. This is not the traditional definition of transferring files, but works in a pinch for text documents and a few images and small videos and such, and when you want to access your files from anywhere.

Step 1: Install Dropbox on your iPhone if you have not already

Step 2: Sign in to your Dropbox account or sign up for a new account and set it up

If you want to transfer files from iPhone to a laptop that are NOT in Dropbox, follow steps 3 and 4 and then proceed with step 5 till the end. If you want to transfer files already in Dropbox, skip ahead to the fifth step.

Step 3: All you need to do is select the files you want to transfer from iPhone to a laptop using Dropbox and use the Share button to Save To Dropbox

Step 4: It will prompt you for the location where to save within Dropbox and will drop the files in your Dropbox, and Dropbox will then upload the files to its servers

Step 5: Open Dropbox and select the file you want to transfer from iPhone to laptop

Step 6: To select multiple files, use the checkmark at the top right and then select the files

Step 7: If you selected just one file, tap the 3 dots below the file and select Export

Step 8: If you selected multiple files, the bottom menu bar will show Export in the center. Tap it.

Step 9: Select AirDrop if the destination laptop is a Mac and transfers the file(s) wirelessly

If the destination computer is not a Mac and you are using a Windows laptop, then after following the first four steps, open the Dropbox app on your laptop or visit the Dropbox website using your internet browser, sign in to your Dropbox account and the files you uploaded from the iPhone should be there, ready for you to download them onto your laptop.

Transfer Files From iPhone To Laptop Using Email

Email is quick and simple to send and everyone uses it. Everyone has an email account and today, most providers provide several gigabytes of free storage for email that your email does not need. So, what do you do to use all that space? You can use the space by transferring files from iPhone to a laptop using email. This is highly cumbersome and a waste of data bandwidth, though, since you first have to upload files to the email server from the iPhone and then download files from the email server on the recipient laptop. Also, most email is limited to 20 MB or 25 MB attachments only. On Google’s Gmail and Microsoft Outlook email, the software automatically creates a link to their respective storage drive, so you can send emails up to the limit of your email storage available, the email will create a link to download the file(s).

It is highly recommended not to use email to transfer large files from the iPhone to a laptop. For text documents and such, you might find that email is a faster, albeit not necessarily better way to transfer files from iPhone to a laptop. Still, if you want to do this, the process is simple enough.

Step 1: Select the files you want to transfer from iPhone to laptop

Step 2: Send them in an email to your email address

Step 3: On your laptop, open your internet browser and visit your email provider’s website

Step 4: Log into your account and download the contents of the email.

Email is by far the most conventional method one could use to transfer files from an iPhone to a laptop.

Conclusion

It is really easy to transfer files from iPhone to laptop if your laptop is a MacBook. Then, most of the apps that allow file transfer will give you the option of AirDrop to wirelessly transfer your files from iPhone to laptop in the Downloads folder. There are other ways too, such as iTunes, Finder on macOS Catalina, and third-party tools such as Dr.Fone - Phone Manager (iOS). However, if you are using a Windows laptop, there are only two options. You can use either Apple’s own iTunes for Windows or a third-party solution such as Dr.Fone - Phone Manager (iOS) that gets the job done in a much more elegant way.