How do I transfer all my photos from an old iPhone to a new Android phone? If you just made the switch — welcome, by the way — moving your photo library is probably the most stressful part. Years of pictures, and they’re all sitting in Apple’s world. The good news: it’s much easier than it used to be, and you have several solid options depending on how many photos we’re talking about.

I’ve helped three family members through this exact move, and the method I’d recommend first is the one Google built for it. But the right choice depends on your situation — 500 photos is a different job than 15,000 — so here’s the full picture, fastest method first.

Method 1: Google's Built-In Switch Tool (Easiest)

During the setup of your new Android phone, you’ll be offered a chance to transfer from your old iPhone — usually via cable, sometimes over Wi-Fi. Say yes. This moves photos, videos, contacts, messages, and most apps in one shot, and it’s genuinely the smoothest path because it’s designed for exactly this moment.

For this to work well, a couple of things help: keep both phones plugged into power, connect them with a cable if you have the right adapter (USB-C to Lightning), and don’t rush it. A big photo library can take an hour or more. Start it when you’re not in a hurry — evening works great. If you already finished setting up your Android and skipped this step, don’t worry — the next methods have you covered.

How Do I Transfer All My Photos From an Old iPhone to a New Android Phone Using Google Photos?

This is my favorite fallback method, and honestly it’s the one I recommend even if you used the switch tool, because it gives you a permanent cloud backup either way. Install Google Photos on your iPhone, sign in with your Google account, and turn on backup. Let it upload your entire library — this can take a day or two on a big library, so leave the phone on Wi-Fi and charging overnight.

Once the upload finishes, open Google Photos on your Android and everything is just… there. Same albums, same dates, searchable. The Google Photos help center walks through the backup settings if anything looks off. Two things to know: check your Google storage — the free 15GB fills fast with a big library, and you may need a Google One plan (100GB is a couple of dollars a month). Also, Live Photos transfer as stills plus short videos, which is close enough for most people.

Method 3: The Cable-and-Computer Route

If you’d rather not involve the cloud, plug your iPhone into a computer, copy the photos off (on Windows they appear in File Explorer; on a Mac use Image Capture or the Photos app), then plug in your Android and drag them over. It’s old-school, it’s free, and it works without uploading 50GB to anyone’s servers.

The catch: you’ll lose your album organization. Everything lands in one big folder sorted by date, and you’ll rebuild albums by hand on the Android side. For a few hundred photos that’s fine. For ten thousand, I’d pay the couple of dollars for cloud storage and use Method 2 instead — your time is worth more than that.

What People Forget During the Switch

  • Turn off iMessage BEFORE you switch the SIM, or texts from iPhone friends may vanish into the void for days. Deregister at Apple’s site if you already swapped.
  • Check HEIC format. iPhones save photos as HEIC; most Androids read them fine now, but if an old app chokes, convert to JPEG in the iPhone’s Settings > Camera > Formats before transferring.
  • WhatsApp chats need their own backup — photos in chat don’t always come along with the library move. Back up WhatsApp to Google Drive on the iPhone first.
  • Shared iCloud albums don’t transfer. Save any photos from shared albums to your own library before you start.
  • Don’t wipe the iPhone until you’ve verified everything twice. Seriously. Check the Android, count roughly, open random old photos. Then wipe.

One more thing worth doing while you’re at it: decide where your photos will live going forward. If your library keeps growing, our guide to how much storage you really need on a phone for photos and videos helps you pick the right phone capacity, and backing up your entire phone to the cloud for free makes sure you never have to do a stressful migration again.

What About Everything Else? Contacts, Messages, and Apps

Photos get all the attention, but a phone switch involves more than the camera roll. Contacts: if they were synced to iCloud, export them first — go to iCloud.com > Contacts, select all, Export vCard, then import into Google Contacts (contacts.google.com). It takes five minutes and beats retyping 300 numbers. If your contacts were already in your Google account on the iPhone (common if you used Gmail), they just appear on the Android automatically.

Messages are the painful part: Apple’s iMessage history doesn’t transfer to Android, period. Your old messages stay on the iPhone. Before switching, screenshot or forward anything critical, and warn your group chats — you’ll appear as a green bubble now, and group threads with iPhone users sometimes need to be recreated to include you properly. SMS history can be moved with third-party apps (SMS Backup & Restore via Google Drive works), but iMessages won’t come along.

Apps: roughly 90% of major apps exist on both platforms — redownload from the Play Store and sign in. Paid apps don’t transfer (Apple and Google don’t honor each other’s purchases), so check which paid apps you actually use before rebuying. Subscriptions billed through Apple need canceling on the iPhone and resubscribing on Android to avoid double-billing. And two-factor authentication apps need migrating before you wipe the old phone — open your authenticator app’s transfer/export feature first, or you’ll be locked out of accounts at the worst moment.

The Bottom Line

How do you transfer all your photos from an old iPhone to a new Android phone? Use Google’s switch tool during setup if you can; fall back to Google Photos backup if you can’t; go the cable route if you’re cloud-averse. Turn off iMessage first, don’t wipe the old phone until you’ve double-checked, and give yourself an unhurried evening. Your memories will make the trip just fine.