Sharing photos used to mean printing them and posting them in envelopes. Today there are half a dozen ways to send a photo from your phone to someone else, and choosing the right method makes a real difference to how the photo arrives.
Sending by text message (SMS or iMessage)
The easiest way is to send a photo in a text message. Open your messages app, start a message to the person you want, tap the attachment or photo icon, choose the photo, and send. The downside is that many phones automatically compress photos sent by text, so the image may arrive smaller and less sharp than the original.
Sending through WhatsApp
WhatsApp compresses photos slightly by default, but you can send them in original quality. Open the chat, tap the attachment icon (the paperclip), and instead of choosing Photo, choose Document and then browse to the photo. This sends it as a file rather than an image, and the recipient gets the full-quality version. You can also tap Photo and then tap the three dots or the settings icon before sending to look for a quality option.
Using email for best quality
For the highest quality, email is reliable. Attach the photo to an email the same way you would attach any other file — tap the paperclip or attachment icon, browse to the photo, and add it. The recipient downloads the original file. The only limit is file size — most email services have a limit of about 25MB per email, which is enough for ten to twenty typical phone photos.
Using Google Photos or iCloud to share albums
If you want to share a whole collection of photos — a holiday, a birthday, a family event — sharing a photo album is much easier than sending individual files. In Google Photos, open the album or select several photos, tap the Share icon, and choose Create shared album. In Apple’s Photos app on an iPhone, tap Select, choose your photos, tap the share icon, and look for Shared Albums. The recipient gets a link and can view or download the photos at their convenience.
AirDrop for iPhone to iPhone transfers
If both you and the recipient have iPhones and are near each other, AirDrop is the fastest option. Select the photos, tap the share icon, and tap the person’s name when it appears under AirDrop. They get the photos at full quality in seconds. Both phones need to have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth switched on for AirDrop to work.
A note on file size
Modern phone photos are large files — often between 5MB and 15MB each. Before sending a large batch by any method, check that you are connected to Wi-Fi rather than mobile data, otherwise you may use a significant chunk of your monthly data allowance.