Wi-Fi transfer is the most flexible way to move a photo library — no cable, no cloud. This guide covers the three network setups that work, the speeds you can actually expect, and how to fix the two most common failures.
Install PhotosMove on your Android phone, start it, open the displayed address in a browser on your PC, and enter the PIN. As long as both devices can reach each other over Wi-Fi — same router, phone hotspot, or a wired PC on the same router — your photos download as one verified ZIP. The transfer itself uses no internet bandwidth.
Both phone and PC connect to your home router. This is the most stable setup and gives the best throughput. Keep both devices on the same band if your router broadcasts separate 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks — or enable band steering so they end up together.
Enable Mobile hotspot on the phone and connect the PC to it. The PC gets an IP from the phone, and the transfer runs directly between the two. Useful when you're away from home or the router is unreachable. Watch battery drain on long transfers.
Your PC doesn't need Wi-Fi at all. If it's plugged into the router by Ethernet and the phone is on the router's Wi-Fi, they're on the same network and the transfer works normally. This is the fix for PCs without a Wi-Fi adapter.
For many small files, the protocol overhead matters more than the link speed. That's why MTP over USB 3.0 frequently transfers photo libraries slower than a well-tuned Wi-Fi transfer — thousands of tiny file requests dominate the total time.
Tools like PhotosMove run a small HTTP server on the phone. Your PC's browser connects to it, lists your albums, and downloads a single streaming ZIP instead of thousands of individual requests. One large stream avoids the per-file overhead that kills MTP and FTP transfers. After the download, a SHA-256 hash is computed locally in the browser and compared against the phone's value, so you can verify the transfer without trusting anyone's word.
| PhotosMove | Quick Share | FTP server app | Cloud upload | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Receiver on PC | any browser | Quick Share app | FTP client | browser/account |
| Whole library, one download | ✅ | ❌ | ⚠️ | ❌ |
| Uses internet bandwidth | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Keeps folder structure | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Integrity verification | ✅ SHA-256 | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
Open PhotosMove and tap start. The phone begins serving your albums on the local network.
On the PC, open the address shown in the app and enter the 4-digit PIN.
One click downloads the streaming ZIP, and let the SHA-256 check confirm every byte.
PhotosMove computes a SHA-256 checksum locally in your browser and compares it with the transfer manifest — green means every file arrived byte-perfect.
No. The phone and PC only need to reach each other over Wi-Fi. The transfer never touches the internet.
Tens of MB/s on a same-band 5GHz link — roughly 10–40 GB/hour. Crowded 2.4GHz can be several times slower.
Put them on the same network, or enable mobile hotspot on the phone and connect the PC to it.
Usually one of: devices on different networks (check guest Wi-Fi isolation), the phone sleeping, a firewall blocking the port, or phone and PC split across 2.4/5GHz with no routing between them.
PhotosMove — free, open source, byte-perfect, no cloud.
No account · No cloud · No PC software