Want to share photos or videos from your vacation with your friends and family? There are several ways to share full-resolution multimedia files with people nearby or over the Internet.
Share files with AirDrop
If you’re near the person you want to share photos or videos with and they have an iPhone or iPad, AirDrop is the easiest way.
If you’ve never used it before, AirDrop is Apple’s secure peer-to-peer wireless data transfer method for sharing photos and data. It doesn’t require an additional app, nor do you need an active internet connection.
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To enable AirDrop, open the Control Center on your iPhone and then press and hold the toggle section.
Here, press and hold «AirDrop».
Select Everyone and ask your friend to do the same on their iPhone.
Now open the Photos app on your iPhone and go to the album with the photos you want to share.
Click «Select» at the top and then choose the photos you want to share.
Click the Share button to open the Share page. You’ll see all nearby AirDrop contacts at the top of the list.
Click on a contact or device.
After your request is accepted, the transfer begins.
Share via messages, mail or other applications
If you want to share photos with a contact who isn’t nearby, you can use Apple apps like Messages or Mail. You can also share using third party apps like WhatsApp and Messenger.
With these methods, the quality of photo transfer depends on the application. If you send photos in messages, they are sent in a high resolution format. In the Mail app, you can choose the file size.
Apps like WhatsApp apply heavy compression to photos. If you want to send photos in full resolution, the Mail app and then Messages are your best bet (however, we’ll look at another online service below).
To get started, open the Photos app on your iPhone, tap Select, and select the photos you want to share.
Next, click the «Share» button.
On the second row, you see a list of apps that you can use to share your photo. Tap Messages, Mail, or WhatsApp. In this example, we’ll look at the Messages and Mail apps.
To send photos to someone else from iPhone via iMessage, tap Messages.
In the top bar, tap the To: field, find your iMessage contact, and then tap their name in the list. You can add more than one contact if you like.
You will see the photos already in the text field; just click the Submit button. Your photos will be sent to the people you selected and you will be returned to the sharing page. To make sure your photos have been sent, just go to the conversation in the Messages app.
To send photos in the Mail app, tap Mail.
The Create window appears with photos as attachments.
Click on the «To:» field, and then enter the email address you want to send the photos to. To add multiple recipients, tap the plus sign (+). Enter a subject and message if you like, and then click the Send button.
A popup will ask if you want to shrink the images to reduce the size of the post. It’s best to click «Actual Size» to send photos in full resolution. If you think it’s too much, you can click «Small», «Medium», or «Large».
The «Large» option is the best as it greatly reduces the file size while keeping most of the image quality intact.
Share iCloud Link
The Messages app only allows you to share high-quality images with other iMessage users. So what if you want to share them with an android user? If your device is running iOS 12 or higher, you can do so using the iCloud link sharing feature.
To do this, open the Photos app, tap Select, and then tap on the images you want to share.
Click the Share button.
Next, click Copy iCloud Link.
The unique iCloud link for all the photos and videos you select is copied to your clipboard.
Open any messaging app and press and hold on the text field. Click «Paste» to paste the iCloud link, and then click the «Submit» button to share the link.
When the recipient clicks on the link, they can view and download all photos and videos in full resolution. iCloud links are valid for one month.
Use the offer exchange feature
In iOS 12, Suggestion Sharing was added to the Photos app and works through the Messages app. It also works through the iCloud link exchange system we covered above.
It automatically parses your photo library and presents you with photo albums that you can share with your contacts. If you’ve recently traveled or had dinner, you’ll probably see an offer in this section (you might also get a notification about it).
To use this feature, open the Photos app and click the For You tab. Scroll down to the «Sharing Offers» section and then scroll through the files.
Click on an offer to expand it. You can then view all the photos in the collection. Click «Select» and then select individual photos if you only want to share a few of the ones included in the list.
Names are suggested for the people in the photographs; when you’re done, click next.
Next, choose who you want to share the photos with. Click «Add people» to search and add another contact.
Click «Share in Messages».
The New Message screen in the Messages app opens. The message contains an iCloud link to your photos with the contacts you selected at the top. Click the Share button to send the link.
Use WeTransfer
If you need to share more than 10 full resolution photos over the Internet, it’s better to use a free service like WeTransfer (you can also use a Dropbox or Google Drive account).
WeTransfer makes the process a little easier because you don’t need an account or an app. You just select your photos, upload them and it generates a link that will live for one week.
To share media this way, open Safari on your iPhone and navigate to WeTransfer. Click Send File?
On the next screen, tap the plus sign (+).
In the pop-up window, click «Photo Library».
Next, select the photos you want to upload. At the bottom of the screen, click Select Image Size.
The default is «Full Size», but you can click on any other size to change it.
After choosing the file size, click Finish.
Click «Next» to proceed to the next screen.
Here you can select a link for your photos or send an email with a link. For this example, we clicked «Get Link».
Click «Translate».
Your photos are uploading and you see a link. Click «Copy Link» to copy the link to your clipboard and then share it.
When recipients open the link, they will see all the attached photos and their file sizes. They can download the photos as a ZIP file if they want to keep them.
If you want to collaborate or collect photos from other people using iPhone, you can share photo albums in the Photos app.
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