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How do I MOVE my photos from iCloud to my Mac. I don't want to buy more iCloud storage and don't want my main library on iCloud. I can't turn on iCloud sync on the mac because that would sync my library with gazillions of photos in iCloud, which isn't what I want. I want the iCloud photos (taken on my iPhone) moved to my photo library on the Mac.
iMac 27", macOS 10.15
There is no automatic to do this the way you seem to want to do it.
You can turn on iCloud sync your mac, this will sync all your photos from iCloud to your mac. (you said you don't want this)
You can download the pictures you want from icloud.com manually then import them to your photo library
You can import photos from your iPhone via itunes/finder
Good luck!
So, I did find a solution at the link, although it is still not simply a 'move' function. It also is not 'make copies and download'. Rather, it is download to mac and then delete from iCloud if that is what you want to do. So:
Open iCloud.com in your browser, select photos.
Select photos you want and click the download icon. (1000 pictures max, so do multiple times if needed).
Once safely downloaded to the Mac and transferred to Pictures folder, delete from iCloud.
That is what I did. Clunky.
No, I cannot turn on iCloud sync, because if I do it checks my Mac and sees that I have too many pictures and I must buy more iCloud storage. I don't want to move my mac library to iCloud, I want to move my iCloud library to my mac.
Also: yes, I can move photos via iTunes from my phone, but that is a tiny subset of what now resides on iCloud.
Why is this so hard? Am I going to regret ever putting photos on iCloud? Why don't these photos show up in the finder on my iCloud drive?????
You can make copies of your photos and download them to your Mac. See Download iCloud photos and videos https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT209454 From here, you can do whatever you want with them.
Great.
How do I MOVE my photos from iCloud to my Mac.
