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Copy files from iPhone to iPad | How to Move files between iOS devices | Connect USB Drive to iPhone

6:08 video

If you work more from iOS devices, you may wonder how to do things you do without thinking on a laptop. Here are four ways to transfer files between two iOS devices.

1. A USB drive (the most difficult)

“How can a USB drive connect to an iPad or iPhone, when the iPhone has Lightning and the iPad has Lightning or USB-C?” Dongles. For this I used a Lightning to USB cable and a USB-A to USB-C adapter. Note that not all USB drives are the same: some require more power and may not work with your iPhone directly. If that’s the case, find a USB drive with external power, or use something like a microSD card reader, which requires less power.

  1. Connect the USB-A to USB-C adapter to the drive and insert it into the iPad. It shows up on the left side of the Files app.
  2. Select the files in a local folder, tap Move, choose the USB drive and tap Copy (the progress display is very limited).
  3. Unplug the drive and plug it into the iPhone (with the Lightning adapter). Go into the drive, select the files, use the File button at the bottom, choose your iPhone’s location and copy.

2. iCloud

Download an image from Safari (long press, Download Linked File). It lands in your Downloads folder, which already sits in iCloud Drive, so any device signed in with iCloud gets the same files. On the iPhone, Browse > Downloads shows it, with a cloud icon meaning it’s in iCloud Drive but not downloaded (tap to download). You can do this with files already on the iPad or iPhone, but account for upload and download time for large files. It also works with other cloud services like OneDrive, Google Drive or Adobe Creative Cloud files, though I’ve seen issues, with OneDrive, for example, where a file takes a long time to show up as available on the other device.

3. AirDrop

Tap and hold a file, choose Share, and tap your iPhone in AirDrop. A picture file goes directly into the Photos app; a LumaFusion backup file opens LumaFusion on the iPhone. It’s a great fast, easy way, but it puts files where the file type dictates (the Photos app, or a specific app) instead of into a folder you choose.

4. Copy and paste

With Handoff, tap and hold the file on the iPad and choose Copy; on the iPhone, navigate to the folder you want, tap and hold in an empty space and choose Paste. As with AirDrop, the file copies directly over Wi-Fi, but it doesn’t automatically open in the app it’s designated for, and you can place it wherever you want in the file system.

Those are the four ways I know: a USB drive, cloud services, AirDrop and copy-paste. If I missed something or there’s an easier way, let me know.

Some links in this post are affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I may receive a small commission. See my ethics statement.

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