How to Transfer Photos, Videos and Files from Phone to PC

Send high-resolution photos, 4K videos, documents, and other files directly from Android or iPhone to a Windows PC or Mac, with no cable involved at any step of the process.

1. Open Nearsend on PC & phone

Open a browser, Chrome, Safari, Edge, or Firefox all work, on both the computer and the mobile phone. No download or app-store installation is required on either device.

2. Scan the QR code or type the PIN

On the PC, open the pairing screen and display the QR code. On the phone, point the camera at it, or tap to scan, to establish a direct WebRTC connection between the two.

3. Select and stream files instantly

Select camera roll photos, screen recordings, or documents. Files stream directly across the connection with zero cloud storage involved at any point in the process.

Why wireless P2P beats USB cables and messaging apps

No compression: unlike WhatsApp or Telegram, Nearsend never re-encodes, degrades, or strips embedded metadata from photos and videos, what's selected is exactly what arrives. No USB driver headaches: no MTP driver bugs on Windows and no repeated "Trust This Computer" prompts on Mac, since there's no cable or driver layer involved at all. Zero extra internet consumption when local: when both devices share a network, data travels directly over the local router at its own bandwidth, rather than being bounced through an internet upload and download.

What actually happens to a photo's quality along the way

A photo or video sent through a messaging app is typically re-encoded to save bandwidth, real, visible quality loss most people never notice unless they zoom in or compare closely. Because a Nearsend transfer streams the original file bytes directly, with no re-encoding step, whatever leaves the phone's camera roll is exactly what lands on the PC: same resolution, same color data, same embedded metadata.

Why this specifically helps with Android-to-Windows transfers

The MTP driver handshake between Android and Windows over USB has a long, well-documented history of being unreliable, a phone that shows as connected but an empty file list, or a "waiting for device" message that never resolves. Since a browser-based transfer never touches MTP at all, that entire category of driver problem simply doesn't apply here.

Sending the other direction: PC to phone

The same pairing process works symmetrically, a document, a download, or an installer sitting on the PC can be sent to the phone the same way, without a separate email-to-self step or a cloud upload just to move one file across.

Sending a whole camera roll instead of individual photos

Rather than selecting photos one at a time, an entire folder, including a full camera roll export, can be dropped or selected in one action, and the folder's structure is preserved on the receiving end, rather than arriving as one flat, unsorted pile of files.

What to do if the PC and phone can't see each other

If pairing seems stuck, checking that both devices actually have a working internet connection is the first step, pairing itself needs each device online, even briefly, before the direct connection can open. A quick page refresh on either side, generating a fresh QR code or PIN, resolves most stuck pairing attempts quickly and reliably.

Guides

Phone to PC Send Folders Large Files Without an App LocalSend Alternative P2P Transfer Without Shared Wi-Fi Private Sharing