Restore photos from your cloud backup
If you've previously backed up photos to Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, or Flickr, you can pull them back down to your phone.
Before you begin
- Photo Transfer App PRO on the device you want to restore to.
- The same cloud account you used to back up.
- Internet connection.
Step-by-step
- Open Photo Transfer App on the device.
- Tap Receive -> Cloud.
- From the source chooser, pick your cloud provider (Dropbox / Google Drive / OneDrive / Flickr).
- If you're not already signed in on this device, you'll be asked to authorize Photo Transfer App once.
- Browse the photos and videos previously uploaded to that account.
- Pick the items you want to bring down.
- Tap Receive.
- Select the destination album and click on Receive. Files arrive in your device's photo library.
- The same file is already there. If the album you chose has a photo or video with the same name, or a numbered copy of it such as
IMG_1234 (1).jpg, with exactly the same size, Photo Transfer skips it (version 10.6 or later on iPhone and iPad, 10.5 or later on Android). Nothing is saved again, and the transfer screen shows Skipped (n). This works the same for every provider, Flickr included. - A different file has the same name. If the size is different, it's still saved, as a separate copy.
- Everything was already there. The transfer screen says "No new files saved" and "All selected items already exist in the destination folder."
- The same file is already there. If the album you chose has a photo or video with the same name, or a numbered copy of it such as
Photo Transfer checks only the name and size to decide that a file is already there. Two different files with the same name and exactly the same size count as the same file, so the second one is skipped.
Uploads and downloads keep going if you leave the app, with Photo Transfer 10.6 or later on iPhone and iPad (on iOS or iPadOS 26 or later) and 10.5 or later on Android. See Leave the app during a transfer.