Transfer iPhone Photos to External Hard Drive Without PC

This post will show you how to transfer photos from iPhone to external hard drive without computer. By doing this, you can easily free up your iCloud or iPhone storage space. Let’s have a look!

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By May / Updated on March 6, 2024

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How to transfer thousands of photos from iPhone to External hard drive?

Hey friends, I have a 256 GB iPhone 12 pro and now I have 80,000 photos on my iPhone. I want to transfer these photos to an external 2TB hard drive. How do my fellow iOS users deal with ensuring that photos are safely stored in a non-iCloud fashion?

- Question from Reddit

Why Need to Transfer Photos from iPhone to External Hard Drive?

With its high-definition camera, iPhone allows users to enjoy capturing and enjoying high-quality photos to their heart’s content. However, why need to transfer photos from an iPhone to an external hard drive? There are several compelling reasons listed below:

Free Up iPhone Storage: Photos often occupy an amount of storage space on an iPhone. Transferring them to an external hard drive to avoid iPhone storage being full.
Backup and Data Protection: External hard drives provide a reliable backup solution for your photos. By transferring them, you create an additional copy of your files.
Device Upgrade and Migration: When upgrading to a new iPhone, transferring photos to an external hard drive facilitates a seamless transition. You can easily transfer your photos to the new device without relying solely on cloud storage or online backups.

In other words, transferring photos from iPhone to an external hard drive provide you with convenience, security, and flexibility to manage your valuable visual memories.

How to Transfer iPhone to External Hard Drive Without PC

For various reasons, you may need to transfer photos from your iPhone to an external hard drive, but you don't have a computer available. Don’t worry! With the growing popularity of connecting external storage devices directly to your iPhone, it’s common to find a USB-C cable included with the purchase of an external hard drive.

Using this cable, you can connect your iPhone and the external hard drive. If you don’t have such a cable, Apple’s Lightning-to-USB camera adapter can serve as a helpful alternative for connecting these devices.

How to transfer iPhone photos to external hard drive without computer? Follow the steps below:

Step 1: Connect the external hard drive to your iPhone > Go to the Files app on your iPhone > Access the Browse section to confirm the successful attachment of the external hard drive.

External Hard Drive Connect to iPhone

Step 3: Open the Photos app on your iPhone > Select the desired or all photos you wish to transfer > Tap the Share button > Choose Save to Files. Then, tap On My iPhone and choose the external hard drive.

Choose External Hard Drive to Transfer Photos

By following these steps, you’ll be able to conveniently transfer photos from your iPhone to an external hard drive even in the absence of a computer. Also, you can learn how to transfer photos from iPhone 14 to PC.

Faster Way to Transfer iPhone Pictures to External Hard Drive on PC

If you need to transfer many photos to an external hard drive, the best way to transfer iPhone photos to an external hard drive is using a USB cable. You will benefit from efficient and direct transfers and offline access. In this case, you can use an iPhone data backup and transfer tool - FoneTool.

With FoneTool, you can swiftly transfer photos, videos, music, contacts, and messages to an external hard drive, SD card, or USB drive. Most importantly, it allows you to effortlessly transfer photos without the risk of data loss. It is worth noting that FoneTool has the following key advantages:

Direct iPhone-to-Hard Drive Transfer: FoneTool enables the direct transfer of photos from an iPhone to an external hard drive, eliminating the need for intermediary steps or cloud storage services.
Preserves Photo Quality: FoneTool ensures that the quality of the transferred photos remains intact, ensuring that no data loss or compression occurs during the transfer process.
Backup and Restore: FoneTool offers additional features such as backup and restore functionalities, allowing users to create a full iPhone backup and restore them if needed.
Time-Saving Solution: Compared to alternative methods, FoneTool offers an efficient way to transfer photos from iPhone to external hard drive to save time and effort.

So, how to transfer iPhone pictures to external hard drive on PC using FoneTool? Please follow the steps below to do that:

Step 1: Free download FoneTool and install it on your computer. Then, connect your iPhone to your computer and enter the passcode on your screen, if necessary.

Download FreewareWin 11/10/8.1/8/7/XP
Secure Download

Step 2: Launch FoneTool to its main interface and click Phone Transfer. Then, choose iPhone to PC and click the Start Transfer button.

Choose iPhone to PC

Step 3: Click the “+” icon and a window will appear. Then, choose the photos you want to transfer > click OK after selecting your photos.

Choose Photos to Transfer

Step 4: Choose your external hard drive as the destination in the Transfer Settings > Click Start Transfer

Click Start Transfer

★Tips:
1. If your photos are saved in the HEIC format, you can use the HEIC Converter tool provided by FoneTool to convert them to JPG/JPEG/PNG format.
2. If your device contains duplicate photos, FoneTool’s Photo Deduplication Tool can assist you find and remove duplicate photos from your iPhone/iPad and your computer.

The Bottom Line

That’s all about how to transfer photos from iPhone to external hard drive without computer. Regardless of whether you have a computer or not, you can effectively carry out this task using the corresponding methods.

These methods are not limited to iPhones alone but can also be utilized to export photos from all iOS devices to a computer. Notably, FoneTool offers a comprehensive solution, allowing you to transfer iPhone photos to external hard drive easily. Besides, you can also use FoneTool to back up and restore your iPhone without data loss.