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Setup

Make a folder your iPhone can back up to

Pixtore saves your photos into an ordinary folder on a computer or a router you already own. That folder has to be shared on your home network first — a one-time job that takes about five minutes. Pick your device below and follow the steps; every click is spelled out.

Sharing a folder on a Windows PC

5 steps

For Windows 11. Windows 10 has the same switches in slightly different places.

  1. Make a folder for your photos

    In File Explorer, create a new folder on the drive with the most free space and call it Photos.

  2. Set your home network to private

    Click your network name, then choose Private network.

    Start › Settings › Network & internet › Wi-Fi › your network name › Network profile type

  3. Turn sharing on

    Turn on Network discovery and File and printer sharing. Further down the same page, leave Password protected sharing on.

    Start › Settings › Network & internet › Advanced network settings › Advanced sharing settings

  4. Share the folder

    Open the Properties of your Photos folder, go to the Sharing tab and click Share…. Pick your user name, click Add, set it to Read/Write, then click Share.

    Right-click the folder › Show more options › Properties › Sharing › Share…

  5. Connect from Pixtore

    Your PC appears in the app by name, something like DESKTOP-VQLE8BB. Enter your Windows user name and password, then pick the Photos folder.

Sharing a folder on a Mac

6 steps

For macOS Ventura and later. On older versions the same options sit in System Preferences › Sharing.

  1. Make a folder for your photos

    In Finder, create a new folder and call it Photos. On an external drive, if you have one.

  2. Turn on File Sharing

    Switch File Sharing on, then click the i button in a circle next to it.

    Apple menu › System Settings › General › Sharing

  3. Add the folder and allow writing

    Under Shared Folders click + and pick your Photos folder. In the Users list beside it, set your own account to Read & Write.

  4. Click Options and turn on SMB

    Click Options…, then turn on Share files and folders using SMB.

  5. Tick your account under “Windows File Sharing”

    In the same window, tick the box next to your account and type that account’s password. Click OK, then Done.

  6. Connect from Pixtore

    Your Mac appears in the app by name. Enter the name and password of the account from step 5, then pick the Photos folder.

If the Mac rejects your password

It is almost always step 5. Without that tick, the Mac still asks for a password — but never accepts one.

Apple stores Windows File Sharing passwords less securely than usual, and suggests unticking the account once you stop using sharing.

Sharing a USB drive on a FRITZ!Box

5 steps

The most comfortable option: the router already runs day and night. All you need is a USB drive with room for your library.

  1. Plug the drive into the router

    Use the USB socket on the back or the side of the FRITZ!Box.

  2. Open the router’s settings page

    Type fritz.box into your browser and sign in. The password is usually on a sticker on the underside of the router.

  3. Turn the storage on and allow access

    Tick Storage (NAS) enabled, then under Home network sharing tick Access via a network drive (SMB) enabled. Click Apply.

    Home Network › USB / Storage — called Storage (NAS) on newer models

  4. Create a user with a password

    Add a user, give it a name and a password you will remember, and tick Access to NAS contents.

    System › FRITZ!Box Users › Add User › Access to NAS contents › Apply

  5. Connect from Pixtore

    The router appears in the app as fritz.box. Enter the user name and password from step 4, then pick a folder on the drive.

FRITZ!Box and FRITZ!OS are trademarks of AVM GmbH. Menu names can differ slightly between models and software versions.

Background

Getting photos off an iPhone without a cloud

Most people run out of iPhone storage long before they run out of patience, and the usual answer is to rent space in somebody else’s data centre, month after month. There is a simpler one: a drive you already own, sitting at home. Once the folder on it is shared, your iPhone copies new photos and videos into it by itself, over your own Wi-Fi — no account, no subscription, no gigabyte fees. The shared folder is the one piece of setup involved, and this page covers it for the three most common cases.

Transfer photos from iPhone to a Windows PC over Wi-Fi

No cable, no iTunes, no importing by hand. Share a folder on the PC as described above, add it in Pixtore once, and every new photo and video lands on the PC’s hard drive on its own — as ordinary files in ordinary folders you can open in File Explorer, copy to another disk, or keep in a backup of your own. Live Photos, videos in 4K and RAW pictures are all copied at full original quality.

Back up iPhone photos to a Mac or an external drive

If your photo library outgrew the Mac’s internal disk, share a folder on an external drive instead and point Pixtore at that. Turning on File Sharing, SMB and Windows File Sharing for your account is all macOS needs; from then on, the iPhone fills the drive quietly in the background, and you can browse the result in Finder like any other folder.

Use a FRITZ!Box with a USB drive as your photo storage

A FRITZ!Box with a USB hard drive attached is the cheapest home storage there is — the router is already on, and a drive costs a fraction of a few years of cloud subscription. Enable Storage (NAS), allow access via a network drive (SMB), create a user with a password, and the router becomes the place your iPhone backs up to, day and night, without a computer being involved at all.

And any NAS, too

Synology, QNAP, UGREEN, TrueNAS, a Raspberry Pi with a drive — anything that can share a folder with a user name and a password works the same way. Create a shared folder, create a user that may write to it, and add it in the app.