SendXa / Articles
iPhone and Windows
Transfer photos and videos from an iPhone to a Windows PC
Updated 2026-08-22 · 6 minutes read
Short answer
Open sendxa.app in Safari on the iPhone and in Chrome or Edge on the Windows PC. On the iPhone, tap the file area and pick the photos or videos you want. The page shows an 8-character code; type those on the PC and the file list appears, then hit Download. No cable, no iTunes or Apple Devices, no iCloud account, and the photos arrive at their original quality.
Apple does not make AirDrop for Windows and it never will. The official routes for getting photos off an iPhone and onto a PC all have a catch: plug in a cable, tap Trust on the phone, install Apple Devices, sign in to iCloud, or wait for everything to sync up to the cloud and then pull it back down.
There is a shorter way. Both the iPhone and the PC already have a browser, and two browsers can talk to each other.
How to do it
On the sending device, open sendxa.app and drop the file onto the page. Several files at once is fine.
The page shows an 8-character code. There is also a QR code and a Copy link button if the other person is not in the room with you.
On the receiving device, open the same address, type the 8-character code into the box and hit Receive. Or just open the link and skip the typing.
The file list appears. Hit Download on the file you want, or Download all.
Keep the sending page open until the transfer finishes. That is the one rule; everything else takes care of itself.
One page, open on both devices. The sender picks the files and gets an 8-character code; the receiver types that code and hits Receive. With the link there is nothing to type at all.
On the iPhone, tapping the file area brings up a sheet asking where to pick from: Photo Library, Take Photo or Video, or Choose Files. Pick as many as you like, and add more later without the ID or code changing.
The HEIC question
iPhones save photos as HEIC, not JPEG. The two ways of picking a file behave differently here, and knowing that in advance saves a round trip.
- Picking from Photo Library: iOS may convert the photo to JPEG before handing it to the page. Convenient, since every Windows machine opens JPEG. The trade is that the file is no longer byte-for-byte the original.
- Picking through Choose Files, meaning the Files app: you get the actual .heic file. This is the route to use when the photo is going into an editor or to a print shop.
Windows 11 opens .heic out of the box. Windows 10 needs the HEIF Image Extensions from the Microsoft Store, or a viewer that already knows the format.
Do not let the iPhone lock its screen
The transfer lives as long as the page on the sending device stays open. When the iPhone locks, Safari gets suspended and the transfer stops. Nothing breaks; it just pauses, and it picks up again when you unlock.
A locked phone gets its browser tab frozen by the system, and the transfer sits still until you wake the device. Nothing breaks, it simply waits — so before a long transfer, push the auto-lock timer out.
Same Wi-Fi is much faster
Before any data moves, the two browsers try to connect directly. On the same home Wi-Fi they succeed, and the data never leaves the building. Measured on a 6 MB file: 3.6 seconds direct, 42.2 seconds relayed through the server.
Both bars are drawn to the times actually measured on this service. The direct route is nearly twelve times faster, and the gap widens as files get bigger.
So if you are about to send a whole holiday's worth of photos, turn cellular off on the iPhone and put it on the same Wi-Fi as the PC. That is the one thing you control that changes the speed most.
Where the files land on Windows
In Chrome or Edge the page asks you to choose a location first and then writes straight to disk as the data arrives, so the only limit is free space. Firefox buffers in memory for files under 512 MB, and falls back to an ordinary browser download above that.
Drag a whole folder onto the page and the folder tree survives: the receiving side sees photos/2026/beach.jpg, not a pile of loose files. Two files with the same name in different subfolders stay distinct.
Against the alternatives
| Route | What it needs | Photo quality | Ceiling |
|---|
| Cable and Apple Devices | A cable, an install, tapping Trust | Original | Disk space |
| iCloud for Windows | Apple account, an install, a sync wait | Original | iCloud quota, 5 GB free |
| WhatsApp or Messenger | Accounts on both ends | Recompressed | Varies |
| Emailing it to yourself | Nothing | Original | 25 MB |
| Sending through a browser | Nothing | Original | 32.0 GB per file |
iCloud earns its keep when you want the photos to simply be on both machines all the time. For moving 40 photos across once, setting up a sync pipeline for it is a lot of machinery for a one-off.
Questions people actually ask
Do I need a cable?
No cable, no dongle, and no tapping Trust This Computer.
Do I need iTunes or Apple Devices?
No. Just the browser already on the iPhone and the one already on the PC.
Do the photos lose quality?
No. The file that arrives is identical to the one that left. If you pick from Photo Library, iOS may convert HEIC to JPEG before handing it over; pick through the Files app to keep the original file.
Can I send a long video?
Yes, up to 32.0 GB per file. For a big video, set the iPhone not to auto-lock and keep the computer plugged in.
What if the iPhone locks mid-transfer?
The transfer pauses rather than fails. Unlock the phone, bring the Safari tab back, and it resumes where it stopped.
Can I go the other way, Windows to iPhone?
Yes, the same way. Pick the file on the PC, type the code on the iPhone. The file lands in the Files app.
Do I need an iCloud account?
No. No account of any kind, including ours.
Try it with the file you are stuck on right now
Open the page on both devices, pick the file, read out the 8-character code. Nothing to install, no account, and the file never rests on our server.
Send a file now →