•The last generation large solid angle magnetic spectrometers for very heavy ions.•Transfer of multiple pairs, providing valuable information on nucleon-nucleon correlations.•The study of the properties of the heavy binary partner via transfer reactions. Significant advances have been achieved in the last years in the field of multinucleon transfer reactions. The advent of the last generation large solid angle magnetic spectrometers pushed the detection efficiency more than an order of magnitude above previous limits, with a significant gain in mass resolution for very heavy ions. Further, the coupling of these spectrometers to large gamma arrays allowed to perform gamma-particle coincidences. One can thus detect the transfer strength to the lowest excited levels of binary products and perform gamma spectroscopy for nuclei moderately far from stability, especially in the neutron-rich region. Via transfer of multiple pairs valuable information on nucleon-nucleon correlations can also be derived, especially from measurements performed below the Coulomb barrier. There is growing interest in the study of the properties of the heavy binary partner, since the transfer mechanism may allow the production of (moderately) neutron rich nuclei in the Pb and in the actinides regions, crucial also for astrophysics. Present studies are relevant for future studies with radioactive beams.