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Backing up photos on iCloud to external hard drive

I am trying to back up all my files on my mac to an external harddrive but it won't work, (I assume) because all the files are on icloud. I have left my laptop on and plugged in for 24 hours to try and download the icloud files but that hasnt worked. Any ideas how I can get my iCloud files downloaded to my Mac and then copied to hard drive?

Thanks!

MacBook Pro

Posted on Apr 1, 2020 1:27 AM

Top-ranking reply

tygb

Level 9

64,764 points

Posted on Apr 1, 2020 5:59 AM

See the article https://support.apple.com/en-in/guide/mac-help/mchl027f1d66/mac

Photos can’t be transferred directly from iCloud to an external hard drive for that you need to set up iCloud photo library see the article https://support.apple.com/en-in/HT204264

And its preferences https://support.apple.com/en-in/guide/photos/pht5156cc968/4.0/mac/10.14 , open finder > Go > home > your user name > pictures either drag and drop Photos Library.photoslibrary to an external hard drive , the second method is right click on Photos Library.photoslibrary and click on show package contents in the upcoming column , you can also drag and drop complete masters folder to an external hard drive that is connected .

Also as per the article https://support.apple.com/en-in/guide/photos/pht6d60d10f/mac

Manually copy your library to an external storage device: Drag the Photos library (by default in the Pictures folder on your Mac) to your storage device to create a copy.
See this article also Photos library - Move your Library to an external storage device

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Backing up photos on iCloud to external hard drive

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