Sending photos from an iPhone to an Android smartphone or tablet was not an easy task a few years ago. Fortunately, things have changed for the better, although no thanks to Apple, but rather because Google, Microsoft, and other companies offer us easy ways to transfer photos from iPhones to Android devices. Here are the most straightforward methods we know:

1. How to transfer photos from iPhone to Android using a file transfer app such as Send Anywhere

Let's begin with what we believe to be the easiest way to transfer photos from iPhone to Android. All you need is an app developed for this exact purpose. There are many available, but the one we like most is Send Anywhere. You can get it for free on your iPhone from the App Store or from the Play Store on Android devices.

Once you've downloaded and installed it, open it on both devices: iPhone and Android. On your iPhone, go to the Photos tab from Send Anywhere and select the photos you want to transfer. Tap and drag to select multiple photos, or open any photo you want and choose Select from the top-right corner of the screen.

You can also select all the photos from your iPhone at once, or select all the photos shot in a specific day, using the appropriate buttons from the app's interface.

Once you've chosen the photos to transfer from your iPhone to the Android device, tap the red Send button from the dialog shown on the bottom of the screen.

The Send Anywhere app now shows you a 6-digit keycode, a QR code, and a Share Link button. You can use any of them to transfer the photos, but the easiest is the last option: at the bottom of the screen, you should see all the nearby devices running Send Anywhere. That's where your Android device should be listed. All you have to do is tap on its name.

On your iPhone, you're going to be asked whether you're sure you want to transfer the files to the Android device. Choose OK.

Almost instantly, the Android device should display a notification that the iPhone wants to transfer photos. Accept and wait for everything that's sent from the iPhone to be received on the Android. That's it!

NOTE: You can experiment with the app if you prefer the other ways of transferring photos. Regardless of whether you choose to use the 6-digit temporary password, a QR code, or the Share Link option, you should know that the transfers are all as safe as possible (all the transferred files are encrypted). For more details on how to work with the Send Anywhere app, you can also check its support page.

2. How to transfer photos from iPhone to Android using a photo app such as Google Photos

Another way to transfer photos from iPhone to Android is through Google's Photos app, which you can get from the App Store on your iPhone. The person to whom you want to send the photos also has to install the Google Photos app from the Play Store, on his or her Android device (if he/she doesn't already have it).

On your iPhone, sign in to the Google Photos app using your Google account (your Gmail address). Then, browse to find the photos you want to transfer and select them. You can do that by tapping and holding on a photo to enter the selection mode, and then tap on all the other photos that you want to transfer.

Once you've selected everything, tap on the Share button from the top of the screen.

On the bottom of the screen, Google Photos shows you a list of people. If you find the one to whom you want to transfer the photos, tap on him or her.

If you don't find him or her in the list, tap the search button that looks like a looking glass.

Enter the name, phone, or email of the person. Once you've found him/her, tap on his/her name, then tap Next on the top-right corner of the screen.

Add a message if you want, or leave the "Say something" field empty if you don't. Then, tap the Send button.

Wait for a couple of moments for the photos to transfer to the recipient's Android phone. Once the transfer is over, you can close the Google Photos app on your iPhone. On the Android smartphone, its owner can now see the photos you've transferred. However, to actually have them stored locally on his or her Android device, he or she must now download them from the Google Photos app.

To download a photo from the Google Photos app on an Android smartphone, tap on the More button (which looks like three dots) from the top-right corner of the screen. Alternatively, you can also slide your finger from the bottom of that photo.

The previous action shows a series of options. Among them, you're going to find a button called Download. Tap on it, and Google Photos saves that photo locally, on the Android smartphone's storage space.

IMPORTANT: Although this is an easy way to transfer photos from iPhone to Android, it only works for individual photos. In other words, Google doesn't let you select multiple photos and download all of them at once from its Google Photos app. That's a bummer for many people, so the next method might be better if you're one of them:

3. How to transfer photos from iPhone to Android using a cloud storage app such as OneDrive or Dropbox

Yet another easy way to transfer photos from iPhone to Android is to use a cloud storage app such as OneDrive or Dropbox. Unfortunately, Apple's iCloud service doesn't have an app for Android devices, so it's out of the question. On the other hand, both OneDrive and Dropbox feel like better services with better apps and even better paid plans. Choose one that you like best or which you already are subscribed to and use, and then follow a couple of steps similar to the ones from the previous method in this article. To exemplify these steps, we're using OneDrive:

First, download and install the OneDrive app on your iPhone. You can get it from the App Store for the iPhone, and from the Play Store for the Android device. Next, use your Microsoft account to sign in to OneDrive on your iPhone. Once you've done that, on your iPhone, upload the photos that you want to transfer. If you don't know how to do that, follow the steps from this tutorial: How to upload photos to OneDrive from your iPhone or iPad.

Finally, select the photos you want to transfer from your iPhone and share them with the person who owns the Android device. If you don't know how to do that, you can find the exact steps detailed in the third section of this tutorial: 4 ways to share files and folders from OneDrive.

After you transfer the photos, the person to whom you send the sharing invitation can use the link he or she got to download all of them on his or her Android device.

4. How to transfer photos from an iPhone to an Android device using a PC

Finally, the last easy method to transfer photos from an iPhone to Android is by using a PC and USB cables. To exemplify the process, we're using a Windows 10 computer, an iPhone, and an Android smartphone. What you need to do is connect the mobile devices to the computer, using their USB cables, and make sure that you let Windows access the data storage on your smartphones. If you do that, both the storage of the iPhone and that of the Android device should be available from File Explorer.

Browse through your iPhone's memory, select the photos you want to transfer, and copy them.

Then go to the storage space of the Android device, find or create the folder where you want to transfer those photos, and paste them.

If the copy and paste doesn't work directly, try copying the photos to your Windows 10 desktop or another folder on your computer and then move them from there to the Android device. When the photos have been transferred from the iPhone to the Android smartphone, you can disconnect both devices from your computer.

What's your preferred way of transferring photos from your iPhone to Android?

Now you know four different ways of sending photos from an iPhone to an Android device. Which one is your favorite, and why? Is there another one that you like even more? We admit that we would have liked to have a built-in option to transfer photos from iPhone to Android using Bluetooth. Unfortunately, Apple's ecosystem is a rather walled place, so we can't do that. If you have anything to add or say, don't hesitate to get in touch using the comments section below.