Microsoft Phone Companion: another very useful app that is going to be dismissed? NO, it is now embedded in the Photos app!!

PS: I had to rewrite that post because now I realize that features that were provided by the Microsoft Phone Companion are now included in the Photos app as you can see in the screenshots in the following!! 🙂

Therefore, as soon as you connect your phone to your Windows 10 PC the Photos app is launched and suggest you to import the new pictures you took with your

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My previous post before I discover the new feature in Photos app 😉

I just reinstalled Windows 10 on my PC and again I noticed that the very useful Microsoft Phone Companion app was not available by default: so I had to download it from the Store!
I was just a lit disappointed of that even because, on the contrary, I have always to uninstall, after every new Windows 1o new installation, several useless apps that you find installed by default (e.g. Solitaire, Movies & TV, Money, Sports, Xbox) … and I always wonder why!!

Microsoft Phone Companion app in the Store

I had just wrote a post in the Feedback Hub, suggesting to have that app preinstalled (as it was, if I remember well), when I had a Product alert popup displayed at the first startup of that app: “Microsoft Phone Companion will be removed soon. Go to Settings to connect your phone“.

Microsoft Phone Companion will be removed soon. GO to Settings to connect your phone

That app, that is 4 stars so it is very appreciated by users, can do basic synchronization between whatever smartphone (even Android and iOS ones) and a Windows 10 PC, copying all or only new taken pictures in an appropriate directory of the PC (e.g. pictures/year/month folders). Once, it also had an option to have deleted pictures on the phone while transferred, in order to free memory on that device … but since some versions ago that useful optional feature was removed (??). Therefore that app could be improved (e.g. it misses an option to not copy pictures with the same name if they are already available on the PC) but it is anyway a very useful one for everyone want to synchronize and save pictures taken with his phone to a PC.

I really wonder why the decision of Microsoft to possibly remove it soon from the Store. Anyway it happened also for other apps, especially for ones related to the mobile market … 😦

The suggestion. in the popup alert, to go to Settings to connect your phone is not useful at all: at least in the case of a Windows 10 mobile device, it simply allows you to send to your phone an SMS with a link that suggest you to register your phone with your account!!

No useful features to connect phones and PC, at least in the case of a Windows 10 mobile device

No import features to get your photos transferred to your PC in an appropriate way (e.g. in year-month directories)!! As it was allowed by the Phone Companion app: