iOS Transfer — copy iPhone photos and videos to Windows (free)

Free, open-source Windows app to transfer photos and videos from an iPhone or iPad over USB 3. Fast grid, real thumbnails, HEIC / Live Photos / RAW, full-resolution copies. No subscription.

If you have been paying iMazing, using Apple Devices / iTunes, or waiting on Windows Explorer’s slow MTP “Apple iPhone” drive — this is the media-transfer piece of that job, without the licence.

This is not a full iPhone manager. It does not back up apps, messages, or the whole device. It copies the camera roll onto your PC, quickly.

Why people look for this

Typical searches this project is for:

• transfer iPhone photos to Windows PC without iTunes
• copy iPhone videos to computer USB 3
• iMazing alternative Windows (photos / videos only)
• import HEIC Live Photos to PC
• iPhone to PC file transfer faster than Explorer

Windows talks to an iPhone as MTP by default. MTP is fine for a handful of files and painful at tens of thousands. This app uses the same usbmux / lockdown / AFC stack Apple’s own tools use, over the USB multiplexer that ships with the Apple Devices app — so listing, thumbnails, and copies stay fast on a large camera roll.

Features

• Browse the camera roll in a grid (tested around 35,000 items)
• Thumbnails from the phone’s own thumbnail store (no HEIC decode for the grid)
• Video duration badges from the movie header (not a full download)
• Filters: photos, videos, Live Photos, RAW, screenshots, length, date, size
• Copy at USB 3 speed with progress, honest throughput, and ETA
• Live Photos: still + motion .MOV stay together
• Windows Date created set to the capture time (Explorer sorts correctly)
• Flat copy or YYYY\YYYY-MM folders
• Resume: already-copied files are skipped
• “Keep both” when iPhone names wrap past IMG_9999
• Warns if the destination disk is too small
• Optional delete from the phone, behind a typed confirmation

iMazing, iTunes, and Explorer

	iOS Transfer	iMazing	Apple Devices / iTunes	File Explorer (MTP)
Price	Free, open source	Paid licence	Free	Built in
Copy photos / videos to PC	Yes	Yes	Yes, slower UX	Yes, slow on big libraries
Full device backup, apps, SMS	No	Yes	Partial	No
Fast USB 3 grid + thumbnails	Yes	Yes	No	No
HEIC / Live Photo aware	Yes	Yes	Mixed	Mixed

Use this if you want files on a disk. Keep paying iMazing if you need backups, app data, or a full device manager.

Requirements

• Windows 10 or 11
• Apple Devices (Microsoft Store) or iTunes — provides AppleMobileDeviceProcess on 127.0.0.1:27015
• iPhone or iPad trusted with this PC (“Trust This Computer”) and unlocked
• USB cable (USB 3 is much faster than Wi-Fi pairing)

npm run doctor

tells you exactly what is missing.

Install and run

git clone https://github.com/AlexBeesley/ios_transfer.git
cd ios_transfer
npm install
npm start

Standalone Windows build (no Node required to run):

npm run package

That writes release\iOS Transfer-win32-x64\iOS Transfer.exe. Pin it to the taskbar after the first launch.

Other scripts:

npm run dev        # rebuild on change
npm run typecheck
npm run doctor     # USB / pairing diagnostics
npm run e2e        # real device check (copies several GB; E2E_QUICK=1 for a small copy)
npm run uitest     # UI on synthetic data, no phone
npm run icon
npm run package

How it works

renderer (React)
   │  IPC + thumb:// protocol
main process
   ├── usbmux    TCP 127.0.0.1:27015 — enumerate devices, open device ports
   ├── lockdown  device port 62078 — TLS from the host pair record, StartService
   └── AFC       Apple File Conduit — /DCIM and /PhotoData

Code lives in src/main/device/ (plist.ts, usbmux.ts, lockdown.ts, afc.ts, session.ts).

Why it is fast

AFC allows one outstanding request per connection, so speed comes from a pool. Measured on an iPhone 17 Pro (iOS 26.1, ~35k items, 845 GB) over USB 3:

Operation	Result
Trusted session	44 ms
List 46 folders / 35,206 items	137 ms
File metadata (size + date)	~4,400 files/s
Thumbnails	~780–1,230/s, ~50 KB each
Bulk copy	72 MB/s sustained, 181 MB/s peak

Thumbnails are never decoded. iOS already stores a ~360×480 JPEG at /PhotoData/Thumbnails/V2/DCIM/<folder>/<file>/5005.JPG. Videos use a parallel VideoKeyFrames tree.

Video duration is three small AFC reads of the QuickTime moov atom (~400 clips/s), cached, only for tiles on screen.

Capture dates are stamped as Windows creation time via PowerShell in batches (filetimes.ts), so Explorer does not show “imported today” for everything.

Write concurrency follows the disk. One stream on HDD, six on SSD. Throughput is measured from completed files, not write-cache absorption, so the ETA is honest.

The grid paints from the listing first; sizes and dates stream in behind it. Metadata never starves thumbnail connections.

Limits

• Only media physically on the device. iCloud-only originals (“Optimize iPhone Storage”) cannot be copied until they are downloaded to the phone.
• No albums, favourites, or Moments (that data is in a multi-GB Photos.sqlite).
• One-way: iPhone → PC.
• .AAE edit sidecars are hidden.
• Wi-Fi pairing works but is ~40× slower than USB; use a cable.

License

MIT. Not affiliated with Apple or DigiDNA / iMazing.