How to Share or Print iPhone Photos

Don't just keep your masterpieces on your phone

by
Sam Costello
Sam Costello
Writer
Sam Costello has been writing about tech since 2000. His writing has appeared in publications such as CNN.com, PC World, InfoWord, and many others.
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Sam Costello
Updated on May 05, 2020

The Photos app manages your pictures, but you're not limited to just keeping them there. You can print them off and use them from other apps, meaning that you can email them, send a picture in a Tweet, use one over text, forward the photos your friends text you, etc.

You can also stream iPhone images (and videos) to your TV.

The directions below for using the Photos app work on all versions of iOS.

Use the Photos App to Share or Print

One way to share, copy, or print photos is from the Photos app.

  1. Use the menus at the bottom to locate the picture(s).

  2. Tap Select at the top right. If you're using iOS 6 or older, select the box with the arrow.

  3. Tap each image you want to share or print.

  4. Touch the box-and-arrow icon at the bottom, or Share if you're using an old version of iOS.

  5. Select an option from the menu.

    For example, Mail will open the picture(s) in the default Mail app so that you can email the photos. Message or Twitter imports the picture there so that you can text it or make a Tweet from it. Print is available here, too, letting you print the photos directly from your iPhone. Copy makes pasting the image into a different app easy. AirPlay transfers wirelessly among Apple devices.

    Screenshots of an iPhone with the Select option, Share button, and sharing options highlighted

  6. Use that app to complete the photo share.

If you're trying to share or print photos that were uploaded to your iCloud account, use Photo Stream. However, if you don't see those pictures in the Photos app, make sure you've turned on Photo Stream.

You can't share or print photos that you've deleted unless you first move them out of the Recently Deleted folder. Learn how to recover deleted images from your iPhone for help.

Use the App of Your Choice

Lots of apps can pull images from the Photos app. So, unlike the method above, this is much more convenient if you're already in the app that you're using to share the picture.

For example, if you use the Twitter app, there's an image icon below the new Tweet window that you can select to pick photos to Tweet. Sharing images from iPhone to Facebook is similar, and the same is true for lots of apps, but the specific method for selecting pictures is going to be slightly different.

Screenshots of the Twitter app with the Photos and Add buttons highlighted

Some examples of apps that let you share pictures from your iPhone include messaging apps like Signal and Facebook Messenger, apps that send emails such as Gmail and Yahoo Mail, dedicated file sharing apps like Wi-Fi Transfer, note-taking apps such as Google Keep, online file storage services like MEGA and Google Drive, etc.

Share or Print Photos From iCloud

If your iPhone pictures have been uploaded to iCloud but you're not using Photo Stream to sync them to your iPhone, you can access your iPhone pictures from iCloud.com.

Use the download button to save the image to your computer, and then you can do things like email and print the file.

iCloud Photos download button on iCloud.com
 Lifewire

Did you know that you can also hide photos on your iPhone? There are a few ways to do it, some more secure than others.

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