So, despite the odds, you somehow managed to score a PlayStation 5. First of all, congratulations. They aren’t easy to find these days, and even the most dedicated shoppers still need quick fingers and a whole lot of luck to get one in their cart. But you did it, and now you’re ready to show off your hitless run in Demon’s Souls or one of your favorite levels in Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart. All you need to do is get your screenshots and clips from your console to your phone — a task more complex than you might expect.
While the current Xbox lineup makes it easy to sync all of your captured gameplay moments using its mobile app, PS5 owners don’t have that option. Instead, you’ll need to have a USB drive laying around the house. If you don’t have one of those, there are a few workarounds for moving your media files through the web, though none are as straightforward as we might like.
Method one: USB drives
If you have any sort of USB drive lying around your house, you can use it to move files off of your PS5 and onto your computer or smartphone.
- Plug your drive into any of the PS5’s USB ports. Any of the three USB-A ports around back or the USB-C port on the front of the console will work.
- Head to the Settings menu and scroll down to “Storage.”
- Select “Media Gallery,” then select the screenshot or video you want to move to your drive. Alternatively, you can enable multi-select by choosing the icon to the left, then checking all of the media you want to transfer.
- Select “Copy to USB Drive” on the menu that appears. In multi-select, it’s hidden under the three-dot menu button.
If you’re using a USB-C drive or have a USB-A to USB-C adapter, you’ll be able to copy your screens and clips directly to your phone by plugging in your drive. Otherwise, you’ll have to use another device (like a PC or Chromebook) as an intermediary. Your files are stored in a folder labeled “PS5.”
Method two: Parties
If you don’t have a USB drive, you aren’t totally out of luck. You can get your captures onto your phone without external storage by sending them in a party chat. You can either choose a friend who won’t mind receiving spam or make a secondary PSN account to use as your transfer dumping ground — either way, the steps are the same.
- On your console, open the image or video you want to send to your phone from the “Media Gallery” menu, as described in the steps above.
- Press the “Share” button in the lower-left corner of the screen.
- Select “Create Party,” then choose your secondary account or a friend’s account.
- Hit “Send” to upload your photo or video to this chat thread.
If you’ve sent a screenshot, downloading and saving it to your phone is as easy as opening the photo and tapping on the “Download” icon that appears in the bottom-right corner. If it’s a video, you’re going to have to use a screen recorder to save it since there’s no option to download the video to your phone from the app. Unfortunately, Sony couldn’t even give us that capability.
That weird symbol the red arrow is pointing to is a download button.
Method three: Twitter
If you’d rather send your media to Twitter than a friend or secondary account — and you don’t mind some compression — that’s also an option. This process follows the same basic steps as using the chat method.
- If you haven’t already, make sure your Twitter account is linked under the “Users and Accounts” menu in Settings.
- Find the image or video you want to upload and hit the “Share” button, just as described above.
- Select Twitter from the “Social” list.
- Post your photo or clip.
From here, you can save or download your screenshot from Twitter to your phone, then delete the tweet.
Unfortunately, until it’s easier to sync your captured gameplay moments between your PS5 and your phone, you’ll be stuck using workarounds and flash drives. Sony relaunched the PlayStation app last year just in time for the new console, which would’ve been the perfect time to add features like Microsoft’s — but it didn’t. With any luck, a future update will finally bring similar functionality to what Xbox users are already enjoying.
