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Transfer photos and videos between iOS devices and to Macs with Scotty

If you need to get photos or videos from your iPhone or iPad to your Mac, Scotty makes it a snap. The app lets you easily transfer between iOS devices, too.

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Matt Elliott Contributor
Matt Elliott, a technology writer for more than a decade, is a PC tester and Mac user based in New Hampshire.
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Matt Elliott
2 min read

Photo Stream makes it easy to share photos among your iOS devices, which is probably why Galarina, maker of Scotty ($2.99) added the ability to transfer from iOS to a Mac with the app's latest update. As a tech blogger, I take a lot of screenshots and need to get them from my iPhone or iPad to my MacBook for editing and uploading purposes. It's a two-step process of uploading the screenshots to Dropbox from my iPhone or iPad and then downloading from Dropbox on my MacBook. Sure, it's a fairly painless process, but Scotty takes out the cloud-based middleman.

Scotty is a universal app that you need to purchase only once to use on all of your iOS devices, and the app will need to be open on any two iOS devices in order to make a transfer. I installed it on my iPhone 4S and iPad 2, and as soon as Scotty was up and running on each, they each immediately found the other.

You'll need to turn on File Sharing in System Preferences on your Mac to make file transfers to it. Screenshot by Matt Elliott/CNET

In order to transfer to a Mac (sorry, PCs are left out), you will need to enable file sharing. To do so, open System Preferences > Sharing and check the box for File Sharing on the left. Then select which folders to share from the Shared Folders window. Once file sharing is turned on, your Mac should pop up on Scotty's home screen, titled Destinations. You will need also to enter your Mac user name and password

Step 1 of making a transfer with Scotty is selecting the destination Screenshot by Matt Elliott/CNET

To transfer a photo or video, you first select the destination from the device you'd like to move a file from. You can drill down to a specific folder on your Mac (as long as it's set up to be shared) by tapping on the names of your folders. To select a folder, tap the arrows icon on the right.

After selecting your destination, you then select the photos and videos you'd like to transfer. Scotty gives you a thumbnail grid--just tap the photos and videos you want and then tap the Transfer button at the top. You can use the button in the upper-right corner to select all or do a custom selection where you grab all photos or all videos of the folder you are viewing.

You can select multiple photos and videos with Scotty. Screenshot by Matt Elliott/CNET

Your devices need to be on the same Wi-Fi network to make a transfer, or you can use Bluetooth for transfers between iOS devices. Photos and videos are transferred at their full resolution.

For another photo- and video-transfer app, read Jason Cipriani's tutorial on Photo Transfer App.