Transferring pictures between your phone and your computer is troublesome but often necessary. If you’re like me, then just because you shot a picture with your phone doesn’t mean you don’t want to use the best tools available on your computer to finish the photograph — especially as phone cameras get better and better (did you know you can shoot RAW files on your phone?).

ACDSee has a terrific solution. Their mobile app, called Mobile Sync, is a free download for Android and iOS and it is simple to use. Let me show you how it works.

Connect to Wi-Fi

The first thing you have to do is connect your phone and computer to the same Wi-Fi network. I don’t know how, but the app on your phone automatically finds the connection for your computer.

Now, when I’m at cafe’s using a public Wi-Fi connection with my laptop this sometimes doesn’t work. I don’t know the ins and outs, but I bet it’s a security thing. However, when I’m at home using my own network it connects instantly.

Choose pictures and send them

Once you’re in the app, select the album on your phone from which to send photos to your computer. Then click the album in the top center. Check the circle button in the corner of the pictures you want to send. Now use the Share button in the top right corner. It’s super simple.

View and write metadata

You can view any single image full screen and choose at the top of the screen to see the metadata for the image, too. This is fun because you get to see the exposure settings your phone used to make each photo and my favorite thing is seeing on a map the location the photo was made.

Not only can you view the metadata, but you can also edit the IPTC. This is all the information about your copyright and it’s baked into your photos, including contact information. You can create your own preset for this info and add it to a photo. That’s a pretty powerful feature.

Settings

In the Settings menu, you can instruct the app how to handle your pictures with names and how they are viewed. For instance, you can use this app to view HEIC files from iPhone’s Live Photos as individual JPEG files. It’s got several options and you can dive in and customize things, but the default settings will get your pictures onto your computer just fine.

It’s a cool system

This works really well to get my pictures from my phone to my computer. From my computer, I can edit and share with more options and power. It transfers fast, too. The only improvement I’m wishing for is to use this app to get pictures from my computer onto my phone, but unfortunately, it’s only one-way right now. Hopefully, this will come in the future. In the meantime, it’s an excellent tool and I think you’ll find it a powerful part of your ACDSee workflow.