How to Save Multiple Photos from Google Drive to iPhone (3 Ways That Work)

Yes, you can save several Google Drive photos to your iPhone, but the Drive app itself does it one photo at a time. For a real batch, I turn on Google Drive inside Apple’s Files app, or I download the whole set on a computer and move it over.

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to save multiple photos from Google Drive to iPhone three ways, which app each photo ends up in, and what to check when the download option is missing.

Where your Drive photos end up on an iPhone

Before you pick a method, it helps to know there are two places a photo can land. The Photos app is your camera roll, where pictures show up next to the ones you took. The Files app is a file browser, so a photo saved there sits in a folder like any document.

Some methods put photos straight into Photos, others into Files. Here’s how the three I use compare, plus Google Photos as a fourth route if you’re on a personal account:

Method	Where photos land on the iPhone	Needs a computer?	Good for many photos?
Drive app: Send a copy > Save image	Photos app	No	No, one photo at a time
Drive app: Open in > Save to Files	Files app	No	No, one photo at a time
Files app with Google Drive turned on	Files app, or Photos if you save them from the Share button	No	Yes
Download on a computer, then move to the iPhone	Wherever you move them (often Photos)	Yes	Yes, whole folders
Add from Drive to Google Photos	Google Photos app	Yes, for the copy step	Yes (personal accounts only)

If you’re still getting used to picking files, my guide on how to select multiple files on Google Drive covers the shortcuts on every device.

Save one photo at a time in the Google Drive app

Google’s iPhone steps work on one file at a time. They’re still the quickest choice for two or three pictures, and they’re the only way to send a photo straight to your camera roll from inside Drive.

Send a photo to your camera roll

1. Open the Google Drive app and go to the folder with your photos.
2. Next to the photo, tap More (the three dots).
3. Tap Send a copy. You may need to scroll to see it.
4. Tap Save image. For a video, the option is Save video.

The photo now shows up in the Photos app with your other pictures. Repeat it for each photo you want.

Save a photo to the Files app instead

If you’d rather keep the photo in a folder, tap More next to it, then Open in > Save to Files. Pick a folder and tap Save.

The same More menu also has a plain Download option. It’s handy when you need the file on the phone for another app, like when you print from Google Drive on an iPhone.

Save a batch of photos through the Files app

This is the method from the original version of this post, and it still works. Apple’s Files app can show Google Drive as a location, so you browse your Drive folders there and pick many photos in one go.

First, turn Google Drive on as a location. You only do this once:

1. Make sure the Google Drive app is installed and you’re signed in.
2. Open the Files app and tap Browse.
3. Tap More (the three dots), then Edit.
4. Turn on Google Drive and tap Done.

Now Google Drive appears under Locations. Open it, go to the photo folder, and use the Files app’s select option to tap every photo you want. Then tap the Share button and choose the option to save the images. They go straight into the Photos app.

If you’d rather keep them as files, move or copy the selection to a folder on your iPhone instead. Large photo sets can take a while to come down, so stay on Wi-Fi.

Using the wrong Google account in Files? It follows whoever is signed in to the Drive app, so sign out of Google Drive on your iPhone and back in with the right one.

Download a whole set of photos on a computer first

When I have dozens of job photos, I skip the phone entirely for the first step. Drive on the web lets you grab every photo in a folder at once.

Here’s my demo Drive for Bluebird Landscaping Co., a made-up lawn care business. The Hillcrest job folder has five photos from 2026, and I’ve selected all of them.

1. Go to drive.google.com and open the folder with your photos.
2. Click the first photo, then hold Ctrl (Windows) or Command (Mac) and click the others.
3. Click the Download icon in the toolbar, or right-click the selection and choose Download.

The right-click menu gives you the same Download option for the whole selection:

To grab everything at once, right-click the folder itself and choose Download. That’s what I do when a client wants the full set.

When you download more than one file or a whole folder, Drive bundles them into a ZIP file in your computer’s Downloads folder.

Unzip it on the computer, then move the photos to your iPhone the way you normally do, such as AirDrop from a Mac or iCloud Photos. If you’d rather skip the archive, here’s how to download from Google Drive without zipping.

For a single picture, open it in the Drive preview and click the Download icon at the top:

Copy Drive photos into Google Photos

If you already use Google Photos on your iPhone, you can copy Drive pictures into it from a computer:

1. Go to photos.google.com.
2. At the top, click Add > Google Drive.
3. Select your photos and click Upload.

The photos then appear in the Google Photos app on your iPhone, and you can save the ones you need to your phone from there. Photos need to be larger than 256 pixels and in a supported type like JPG, HEIC, PNG, WebP, or GIF.

Heads up: This direct copy only works on personal Google accounts. With a work or school account, Google says you have to download from Drive and upload to Google Photos yourself. The copy also counts against your storage, and edits in one app don’t change the other.

What doesn’t work, and when downloads are blocked

A few limits trip people up, so here’s what to expect before you start.

• No batch save in the Drive app. Google’s iPhone help only covers one file at a time, so use the Files app or a computer for big sets.
• Folders don’t download on the phone. Downloading a whole folder as a ZIP is a computer feature.
• Shared photos can be locked. If someone shared the photos with view or comment access, they may have turned off downloading. The options disappear and the only fix is to ask the owner.
• Cookies matter on the web. Blocking third-party cookies in Chrome stops Drive downloads. Allow them for drive.google.com only.

If the button is there but nothing saves, my checklist for when you cannot download files from Google Drive walks through the usual causes. Seeing a limit message on a popular shared file is a different problem: download quota exceeded in Google Drive explains it.

And if you’re the one sharing photos, it’s worth knowing whether viewers on Google Drive can download files before you send the link.

A few more Drive guides that pair well with this one:

• View ZIP files in Google Drive
• Google Drive not uploading from your phone
• Convert an image to PDF in Google Drive
• Upload large files to Google Drive

Common questions