Since you bought your new HUAWEI smartphone, all you have to do is take pictures: every occasion has become a good one to take a selfie or photograph the panorama that is in front of your eyes. But now you are in trouble: you tried to connect the phone to the PC to download the photos on the latter, but Windows cannot “see” the device. In File Explorer there is no trace of the device and now you are desperate because you do not know how to deal with the situation.
Well, know that there is nothing to worry about. Probably, in order for smartphones and computers to communicate correctly, all you have to do is install software or change a simple setting on the phone. The rest will be as easy as drinking a glass of water. Do not you believe it? Then take a few minutes of free time, read the instructions on how to download photos from HUAWEI that you find below and try to put them into practice.
To create the tutorial I used the HUAWEI P40 Pro smartphone equipped with Android 10, but the indications in the article are valid for all the devices of the Chinese company, including tablets. Happy reading and, above all, have fun!
Index
- How to download photos from HUAWEI to PC
- File Explorer
- Windows Photos app
- HiSuite
- Other solutions
- How to download photos from HUAWEI to MacBook
- Android File Transfer
- Image capture
- Other solutions
- How to download photos from HUAWEI to USB stick
- How to download photos from HUAWEI via the Internet
How to download photos from HUAWEI to PC
Do you use a Windows PC ? Then know that you can download photos from your HUAWEI smartphone in a very simple way. Indeed, in several ways, all very simple. How do you say? Don’t know how to download photos from HUAWEI to PC ? Do not worry, you will find all the steps to be taken illustrated below, you just have to choose the solution that seems most comfortable to you and put it into action.
File Explorer
If you want to download photos from a HUAWEI smartphone but do not want to install additional software on your PC, do this: connect the phone to the computer using the supplied USB cable , tap the Allow button for the warning that appears on the device screen and wait a few seconds for Windows to recognize the latter by installing its drivers from the Internet (this is only necessary for the first connection).
Next, tap the File Transfer button in the pop-up that appears on the device asking you in which mode you want to use the USB connection. In this way the computer will see the smartphone as a USB mass drive (like a key) and will allow you to access all the files on its internal memory and / or on the microSD / NM Card present in it.
After activating the USB File Transfer mode on your smartphone, switch to your PC and open the Windows File Explorer (the yellow folder icon located at the bottom left of the taskbar). In the window that opens, select the item This PC (or Computer ) from the left sidebar and double-click the icon relating to your HUAWEI smartphone (eg HUAWEI P40 Pro ).
Now, depending on whether the photos are saved on the internal memory of the smartphone or on the external card, go to Internal memory or SD card and open the DCIM> Camera folders to access all the photos (and videos) that you have taken with the cameras of the phone.
And now? Well, all you have to do is select the files of your interest and make a very simple copy-and-paste or cut-and-paste in a folder on your computer.
If, in addition to photos and videos taken with smartphone cameras, you also want to import the screenshots you have captured on your HUAWEI device to your PC, navigate to the Internal Memory folder > Pictures> Screenshots or SD Card> Pictures> Screenshots .
If you want, you can also import the photos to your PC in a more orderly manner – for example, by assigning tags to them and dividing them into folders renamed according to their creation date – using the Windows Import Images and Videos tool .
To take advantage of the Windows Import Pictures and Videos tool, you must first activate the USB Photo Transfer connection mode on your smartphone. Then expand the Android notification menu, press the section relating to the USB connection, select the Photo Transfer mode and wait a few seconds for the connection between phone and PC to be re-established.
When the operation is complete, open the Windows File Explorer, select the item This PC / Computer from the left sidebar, right-click on the icon of your smartphone and select the option Import images and videos from the menu that appears.
In the window that opens, wait a few seconds (or a few minutes) for the photos and videos on the phone to be detected, put the check mark next to the item Review, organize and group the elements to be imported and, if you want, type the tags to assign to the contents to be imported on the PC (in the appropriate text field located at the bottom left).
At this point, click on the Next button , use the Adjust groups adjustment bar (located at the bottom right) to set the time interval by which to divide the photos into folders, put the check mark next to the groups of photos to be copied to the PC and presses the Import button (bottom right) to start the data transfer process.
By default, photos and videos imported from your smartphone are saved in the Pictures folder on your PC. If you want to change destination, click on the item Other options in the photo and video import utility (bottom left) and select the folders of your preference using the drop-down menus Import images into and Import videos into . Easier than that ?!
Windows Photos app
If you use a PC equipped with Windows 11 or Windows 10 , you can import photos and videos from HUAWEI smartphones using the Photos application , which you find pre-installed for free on your PC.
Before calling up the Windows Photos application, expand the notification menu on your phone and, if you haven’t already done so, activate the USB Photo connection mode by pressing the appropriate button. Next, search for photos in the box located in the lower left corner of the screen and select the Photos app icon from the search results (the blue Polaroid icon).
In the window that opens, click on the Import button located at the top right, select the item From a connected device from the menu that opens and wait a few moments for the list of photos (and videos) on your smartphone to appear .
Then put the check mark next to the thumbnails of the elements to be imported to the PC and press the Import XXX button of XXX elements to start the data transfer.
HiSuite
HiSuite is HUAWEI’s official software for managing its smartphones and tablets from PCs. It is completely free and allows not only to transfer photos and videos to and from HUAWEI terminals, but also to update the latter, create and restore backups, manage installed apps, the address book and much more.
If Windows cannot see your device using the drivers automatically downloaded from the Internet or, much more simply, you are not comfortable with the tools included as standard in the operating system, you can install HiSuite and use the latter to manage the transfer of photos. and videos between your smartphone and PC.
To download HiSuite on your PC, connect to this web page and click the Download for Windows button and wait for the .exe file to be downloaded . Once the download is complete, double-click on the file you just downloaded to start the installation process.
In the first window that opens, put the check mark next to the item I have read and accepted the HiSuite User Agreement and to continue click on the Install button . Wait a few seconds for the HiSuite installation to complete. To complete the program setup, click the Start button . If you are asked to restart your PC , accept.
With the PC restarted, connect the smartphone to the PC using the supplied USB cable and answer Allow in the pop-up that appears on the smartphone in order to allow connection to the PC. Now, however, you also need to enable HDB mode on your device.
Don’t worry, doing it is really simple: open the Settings on your device, easily recognizable by the icon of a gear , and write “HDB” in the search box at the top, tap on the first item that is listed which will take you to the Other section settings . Among the available options, activate the item Allow connection via HDB by setting the activation lever on the side to ON and enter the unlock password of your device to confirm the operation.
If your computer still doesn’t see your phone after doing these steps, you need to turn on developer options. To do this, go to the Settings app and tap on Phone Info , on the next screen tap 7 consecutive times on the item Build number and, finally, also activate USB debugging in the Settings menu > System and updates> Developer options .
Now we are! Check the Pictures box in HiSuite and allow access from your smartphone by entering your PIN or unlock pattern . Once you have obtained the permissions, click again on the Images box , and in the next screen, click on the Camera tab (if you want to import the photos taken with the smartphone cameras to the PC) or on the Screenshots tab (if you want to import the screenshots to the PC ), then select the items you want to import to your computer.
At this point, click on the Export button (bottom right), select the folder in which to copy the images and press OK to start the data transfer. Easier done than said!
Other solutions
How do you say? Do you want to know if there are other solutions to download photos from HUAWEI to PC without using a USB cable? The answer is yes. If for some reason you cannot use the USB cable, for example if you have a broken USB port on your smartphone or you simply cannot find a suitable USB cable, you can take advantage of alternative solutions , which will allow you to easily move your photos to your PC.
The first and perhaps the easiest to use is to take advantage of the Bluetooth connection , although in this case this technology significantly limits the speed of copying files, which could take a very long time if you have several photos to download. But if you are not in a hurry, you can take a look at my tutorial where I show you how to transfer photos from mobile to PC via Bluetooth .
Another alternative that I propose to you, and the one I recommend, is to use Snapdrop , a very convenient service that allows you to quickly exchange data from one device to another via the local network by acting directly from the browser . To be able to transfer, both devices need to be connected to the same Wi-Fi network. The transfer is very fast, useful if you have a lot of photos to download. If you want to know more, you can check out my tutorial on how to transfer files to Android .
How to download photos from HUAWEI to MacBook
If you are using a MacBook and, even if you connect your smartphone to your computer via USB cable, you cannot see the contents of the latter in the Finder. At this point you are probably wondering how to download photos from HUAWEI to MacBook , but don’t worry: there are free solutions that allow you to solve the problem in a very simple way.
Android File Transfer
The first application that I recommend you to try is Android File Transfer , the official application that allows you to access the internal memory and microSD of Android terminals and manage all the data contained in the latter from macOS. To download it on your Mac, connect to the official website of the program and click on the Download Now button .
When the download is complete, open the dmg package that contains Android File Transfer, copy the software icon to the macOS Applications folder and start the latter by right clicking on it and selecting the Open item twice. In the window that opens, click the Start button and the program will automatically close.
The game is done: from now on, every time you connect an Android device to your MacBook, the Android File Transfer application will automatically start and you will be able to manage all the files on the internal memory and on the microSD / NM Card of the latter. .
To immediately test the potential of Android File Transfer and use it to download photos from your HUAWEI smartphone, connect the device to the computer via USB cable and activate the File Transfer mode in the Android notification menu (by swiping from the top of the screen towards the down and pressing in the USB File Transfer section).
Therefore, wait for the Android File Transfer window to appear, select the tab relating to the internal memory or SD card of the device and access the DCIM> Camera folder (for photos taken with cameras) or the Pictures> Screenshots folder (for screenshots ). Then locate the files you want to copy to your MacBook and drag them to a folder of your choice.
Image capture
If you want, you can download photos from a HUAWEI smartphone to a MacBook also using Image Capture , the utility included “standard” in macOS that allows you to scan and import photos and videos from various devices.
To capture photos from a HUAWEI smartphone via Image Capture, you must first enable Photo Transfer mode on your phone. Therefore, call up the Android notification menu, press the section dedicated to USB File Transfer and select the Photo Transfer mode . Only after completing the operation, start Image Capture on the MacBook (you can find the program in the Other folder of the Launchpad or by searching for it in Spotlight).
In the window that opens, select the name of your smartphone from the left sidebar, choose the folder in which to import the photos using the Import to drop-down menu (below) and press the Download all button to start the data transfer.
If you do not want to import all the images on your smartphone to your MacBook but only part of them, select only the elements of your interest using the combination cmd + click and drag them to a folder of your choice. Easy, right?
Other solutions
In addition to the ones I showed you earlier, there are also other solutions to be able to download photos from HUAWEI to MacBook. Exactly as I showed you in the chapter dedicated to Windows PCs , even on MacBook it is possible to transfer files using a service like Snapdrop , or via Bluetooth connection , in this case you can take a look at my tutorial on how to transfer files from Android to Mac via Bluetooth .
How to download photos from HUAWEI to USB stick
You have decided to clean up your smartphone and you have decided to move all your photos to a USB stick, so that you always have them at hand. Now though, you are probably wondering how to download photos from HUAWEI to USB stick . How do you say? I’m right? Don’t worry, it’s simpler than you think.
You can use two ways, both of which are equally effective. The first is to first copy all your photos to the PC, as I showed you in the previous chapters : once copied, all you have to do is insert the key into the PC and use the copy and paste function to move your photos onto the USB pendrive.
However, if you would like to avoid making a double copy of your photos and want to save time, you could connect a USB key directly to your smartphone via USB OTG adapter , which will allow you to use the micro USB or Type-C port of your HUAWEI smartphone to connect keys classic with USB-A connection .
Before proceeding, however, it is important to check that there is OTG support on your smartphone, to do this I suggest you download the USB OTG Checker app , available for download on the Play Store and on alternative stores for devices without Google services. Once installed, all you have to do is open it and find out if this support is present or not.
If your HUAWEI smartphone supports OTG, you can proceed by connecting a USB OTG adapter , if you already have one. If instead you want to buy it, first check if your device has a micro USB or Type-C port, then proceed to buy one: don’t worry, the expense will be very minimal.
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Now all you have to do is connect the USB stick to the OTG adapter connected to the smartphone and use the File Manager app (pre-installed on the HUAWEI devices), to copy the photos directly to the USB stick. To do this, select a photo or the entire folder and tap the Move button at the bottom. Now select the USB stick as the destination and wait for the operation to finish.
How to download photos from HUAWEI via the Internet
You are the type who hates USB cables and would like to understand how to download photos from HUAWEI over the Internet . My advice is to rely on cloud services, first of all Google Photos , which is installed as standard on many HUAWEI devices with Google services and allows you to store both photos and videos on the Internet using a space of 15 GB completely free. .
To activate the upload of photos (and videos) to Google Photos, start the official app of the service on your device, press the icon of your account located at the top right and select the item Photo settings from the menu that appears. side. In the screen that opens, go to Backup and synchronization, tap on the Upload size option and tap on the Original quality item if you want the photos to be uploaded at maximum resolution, or on Save storage space, if you want the photos to be uploaded at a slightly lower resolution, which at the same time allows you to have more space available. From this moment on, all the photos and videos that you make with the smartphone cameras will be uploaded to Google’s online space. Read more here .
To download the photos from Google Photos to the PC, open the browser, connected to the Web version of the service , put the check mark on the thumbnails of the images of your interest and select the Download item from the menu with the three dots located at the top of right.
If, on the other hand, you have a newer HUAWEI device, equipped with AppGallery and HMS , you can use the HUAWEI Cloud Gallery service , which works exactly like Google Photos, only in this case you have only 5 GB of space available for free. For more information you can take a look at my tutorial on how to backup data to the cloud .
If, on the other hand, you prefer to transfer photos from your smartphone to your computer wirelessly without going through specific cloud services, you can turn to the aforementioned Snapdrop or third-party apps such as AirDroid and Sendanywhere : I told you about it in depth in my tutorials on how to connect. HUAWEI to PC and how to transfer files to Android .