How to back up iPhone photos without iCloud
Your photos can live somewhere other than Apple’s servers. It mostly takes a cable.
In short
Connect the iPhone to a computer with a cable and import: on a Mac, use the Photos app or Image Capture; on Windows, install Apple Devices and import with the Microsoft Photos app. You can also copy files to a USB drive or SD card through the Files app. A full computer backup of the iPhone includes your photos too, but only while iCloud Photos is off.
Key takeaways
- A Mac imports with Photos or Image Capture.
- Windows imports with the Apple Devices and Microsoft Photos apps.
- Image Capture skips the Hidden album while it is locked.
On a Mac
With the Photos app
- Connect the iPhone with a USB cable, and click Allow if the Mac asks.
- Open Photos on the Mac. The Import screen appears; if not, click the iPhone in the sidebar.
- Unlock the iPhone, and tap Trust if asked.
- Choose an album, then click Import All New Items, or select photos and click Import Selected.
- Wait for the import to finish before disconnecting.
With Image Capture, straight to a folder
Image Capture imports photos as ordinary files into any folder you pick in the Import To menu — useful if you want copies outside a Photos library, on an external drive for example. Click Download All, or select items and click Download. A Live Photo arrives as two files: a still image and a video.
Two details matter. By default, imported items stay on the iPhone; you decide whether to delete them afterwards. And since macOS 15.4, photos in the Hidden album aren’t imported while the album is locked. To include them, turn off Use Face ID (or Use Touch ID, or Use Passcode) in Settings › Apps › Photos for the import, then turn it back on.
On a Windows PC
- Install the Apple Devices app from the Microsoft Store.
- Connect the iPhone with a USB cable, unlock it, and tap Trust or Allow.
- Import the photos with the Microsoft Photos app.
If you use iCloud Photos, Apple says to download the full-resolution originals to the iPhone before importing to a PC. For the best compatibility with Windows, you can set Settings › Camera › Formats to Most Compatible: new photos and videos are then saved as JPEG and H.264.
To a USB drive or SD card
With the right adapter — or directly, for a USB-C drive on a USB-C iPhone — an external drive appears in the Files app under Browse › Locations, and you can copy files onto it from Files and other supported apps. The drive needs a single partition formatted as APFS, macOS Extended, exFAT or FAT32, and hard drives often need their own power source.
A full backup to the computer
A backup in Finder (Mac) or Apple Devices (Windows) copies almost all of the iPhone’s data and settings — but not data already synced to iCloud. If iCloud Photos is off, your photos are in that backup; if it is on, they aren’t. A backup restores a whole iPhone at once, so it complements an import rather than replacing it: an import gives you photos you can open one by one.
Photos in a vault app
Photos you’ve moved into a vault app no longer live in the photo library, so none of these imports will see them. Check how the vault itself is backed up. Latent keeps an encrypted backup of each vault in your own iCloud, and can export a complete encrypted archive of a vault that you can store wherever you like.