photos2android

Transfer photos from your Mac to an Android phone — straight out of the macOS Photos library, one album at a time.
No cloud, no account, no subscription. Your library is opened read-only and nothing is ever deleted or overwritten.

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Why

Moving photos from a Mac to an Android phone is genuinely annoying. Google removed Android File Transfer from android.com in early 2024 and no longer maintains it; iCloud doesn't talk to Android; and re-uploading 17 GB through the cloud just to pull it down again is absurd when both devices are on the same desk with a cable between them.

The manual route works but is tedious: select the album in Photos, File → Export → Export Unmodified Originals, wait, find the folder, open a file transfer app, drag it across, then check nothing was missed.

photos2android collapses that into one step. It reads the Photos library directly, resolves an album to its original files, pushes them over adb, and then verifies every file landed. One album, one click.

How it compares

	photos2android	OpenMTP	Google Photos	AirDroid
Understands Photos albums	Yes	No	No	No
Needs a manual export first	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Works offline / no account	Yes	Yes	No	No
Verifies the copy afterwards	Yes	No	No	No
General file browsing	No	Yes	No	Yes

OpenMTP is an excellent MTP file browser and the tool to reach for when you want to move arbitrary files. It just doesn't know what a Photos album is — .photoslibrary is a sealed bundle with a SQLite index inside, so albums aren't folders you can browse. This tool handles that part.

Install

git clone https://github.com/sridevsoft/photos2android.git
cd photos2android
./portal

That's it — no pip install, no virtualenv. Python 3 standard library only.

You need adb:

brew install --cask android-platform-tools

And on the phone: Settings → About phone → tap Build number 7 times, then Developer options → USB debugging, and tap Allow when you plug it in. The app walks you through this if it can't see your phone.

Use it

Web portal — ./portal opens http://localhost:8790

Album list with real cover thumbnails pulled from your library, live phone status with storage, a summary of exactly what will be copied, then a progress bar and a verification table.

Command line

./a2p                                  # interactive picker
./a2p --list                           # list albums, exit
./a2p -a "Summer 2026" --dry-run       # show what would happen
./a2p -a "Summer 2026"                 # do it
./a2p -a "Summer 2026" --dest /sdcard/DCIM/Trip

Safety

This tool moves irreplaceable photos, so the guarantees are structural rather than best-effort:

Guarantee	How it's enforced
Your Photos library is never modified	SQLite opened with ?mode=ro — writes are impossible, not merely avoided
Nothing on the phone is ever deleted	there is no delete call anywhere in the codebase
No file is ever overwritten	same-name files are skipped, or renamed with --rename-clashes
Interrupting is safe	already-copied files are skipped, so re-running resumes
Verified, not assumed	after copying it re-lists the phone and checks every file landed and that the files that were already there are all still present

How it works

Photos keeps its index in Photos.sqlite inside the library bundle and the untouched originals in originals/<hex>/<UUID>.<ext>. The album→asset join table is renumbered between Photos versions, so the schema is discovered at runtime rather than hardcoded. Thumbnails come from the library's own JPEG derivatives, so nothing has to be decoded or generated.

Files are pushed in batches of 50 to amortise per-call adb overhead; if a batch fails it retries file by file to isolate the culprit rather than failing the whole run.

Notes

• iCloud-only photos have no local file. The tool counts them, warns, and skips them. Download the originals in Photos first to include them.
• iPhone albums are mostly HEIC/MOV. Android 10+ reads both natively. .mov and .mp4 are the same underlying container, so Android indexes MOV files as video/mp4 and treats them as ordinary videos.
• Copied photos won't appear at the top of Google Photos. It sorts by capture date, so an album of May photos lands among your May photos. Use Library → Photos on device → Camera to see them by folder.
• Filenames stay as the library's UUIDs. Gallery sorting uses EXIF, so dates remain correct.

Options

-a, --album          album title (partial match ok) or its pk
-l, --list           list albums and exit
    --library        path to a .photoslibrary bundle
    --dest           folder on phone (default /sdcard/DCIM/Camera)
    --serial         adb serial, if several devices attached
    --adb            path to the adb binary
    --dry-run        show what would happen, copy nothing
    --rename-clashes copy same-named files as name_1.ext instead of skipping
-y, --yes            skip the confirmation prompt

Environment: A2P_PORT (default 8790), A2P_LIBRARY (library path override). The server binds to 127.0.0.1 only.

FAQ

How do I transfer photos from a Mac to an Android phone?

Connect the phone by USB with USB debugging enabled, then use a tool that speaks MTP or adb. This one goes further and pulls the photos straight out of the Photos app, so you skip the export step entirely.

Can I copy an Apple Photos album to Android?

Yes. That is exactly what this does — pick the album, and its original files are copied to the phone's camera folder.

Is Android File Transfer still available?

Google removed it from android.com in early 2024 and no longer maintains it. It still runs from direct links, but it breaks on current macOS versions.

Does this work with iCloud Photos?

Only for photos whose originals are downloaded to the Mac. iCloud-only photos have no local file — the tool counts them, warns you, and skips them. Turn on Download Originals to this Mac in Photos settings first if you need them.

Will it delete or change anything?

No. The Photos library is opened read-only at the SQLite level, and there is no delete call anywhere in the codebase. Same-named files on the phone are skipped rather than overwritten.

Does it handle HEIC and MOV files from an iPhone?

Yes, and Android 10+ reads both natively. No conversion happens.

Do I need to install anything with pip?

No. Python 3 standard library only — no packages, no virtualenv.

Contributing

Issues and PRs welcome. The one hard rule: no code path may delete or overwrite user data. Any PR that adds one will be declined regardless of how useful the feature is.

About

• Author: Sriharish Sathya
• License: MIT — see LICENSE
• System Requirements: macOS with the Photos app, Python 3.8 or higher, adb (Android Platform Tools). No third-party Python packages — standard library only.
• Repo URL: https://github.com/sridevsoft/photos2android
• Contacts: sriharishsathya@gmail.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sriharishs/