Is there any way to download all the photos from iCloud, not by the 1,000 limit load?

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Level 1

60 points

Is there any way to download all the photos from iCloud, not by the 1,000 limit load?

My iCloud is full, mostly because my partner and I have a million photos of our lil one, and often they've been shared between devices, so now we're hit the limit and I'd rather back up both libraries (sharing on a Family plan) and get rid of duplicates. I have drives at home that I can keep the photos backed up to.

But I can't find any other way, than selecting 1,000 at a time from iCloud and downloading them. It's taking a while, and sometimes fails. It's also stripping the metadata from the photos too, so the dates which they've been taken, is gone.

I've tried checking the iCloud Photos option in the Photos app, but it won't bring photos down, it just wants to upload what it has already (from years ago, and until now, not often used Photos on the Mac). I plugged my phone in too, and it's downloaded the recent 500, but we're still 8,000 short and it's not showing anything that isn't loaded on the phone (prev photos are sync'd to iCloud).

So, is there a way to bulk-download the whole iCloud photos library, and keep the metadata intact?

Posted on May 27, 2020 4:01 PM

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Answer 1

markwmsn

Level 6

16,715 points

May 27, 2020 8:47 PM in response to Kit Greer

The only obvious way that I see would be to increase your iCloud storage for long enough to upload those years-old photos from Photos on your Mac, download the newer photos to Photos on your Mac, export from Photos to the external drive(s) as desired, and delete however many photos from the Photos library (and hence iCloud Photos) it takes to make enough room to fit inside the iCloud storage you are comfortable renting.

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Answer 2

markwmsn

Level 6

16,715 points

Jun 13, 2020 3:38 PM in response to Kit Greer

It is generally not a good idea to be using two (or more) transfer mechanisms (such as iCloud Photos sync and manual download+import) between two devices. Better would be to work out what is getting in the way of the normal operation of iCloud Photos.

On each device, what status shows up under the counts of photos and videos? (You haven't said what system versions are on your iPhone and your Mac. The location of the counts depends on those versions. On macOS 10.15.5 and on iOS 13.51, look at the bottom of the All Photos view; ideally, you would like to see "Updated Just Now" below the counts.)

While the sync is (hopefully) proceeding, is your Mac allowed to sleep? That would slow things down a lot.

How do the counts of photos and videos shown in the Photos section of iCloud.com compare with the counts on your iPhone and on your Mac?

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Answer 3

Kit Greer Author

Level 1

60 points

Jun 13, 2020 2:46 PM in response to markwmsn

Ok, so I’ve done this, it’s been a couple of weeks and the iPhone and Mac aren’t syncing everything, there’s huge holes in the albums between the devices, to the point I’m paranoid it’s going to lose photos.

I can’t work out how to force it to sync, it’s taking forever. Any way to do this so the Mac and phone are showing all the same pics?

I'm also trying to send ‘months’ at a time from the phone to the Mac, but downloading is taking an age (internet is ~150mb/s) and I’m also hoping that it’s not going to double up on photos, and/or get round to syncing everything then either double up or confuse itself with overwriting photos or other photos my partner has shared, with the same photo number. It’s really not going as smooth as I’ve come to expect!

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Answer 4

Kit Greer Author

Level 1

60 points

Jun 13, 2020 4:02 PM in response to markwmsn

I’ve left the Mac on for a couple of weeks with Photos open, and it’s not got anything before a last month, which the phone does. It just seems to have stalled and no way to force it to get everything from iCloud. The bottom of Photos keeps showing a few hundred to upload, but after importing a few, it’s now curating previews etc and dealing with duplicates. I think it was struggling to upload older photos from a few years ago and not doing anything else

iCloud is showing everything, as expected.

Even trying out airdrop from the phone to the Mac, I’ve picked a couple of days from June last year and it’s taken over an hr to download on the phone, showing about an ⅛ of the download pie (mmmmm pie). I did a couple of photos, it downloaded to the Mac and then showed in the right place in Photos. At this rate tho, it’ll be next June by the time it’s done!

I've got the sync option checked on the Mac now and recent photos have been syncing as expected.

just need to get this past year done.

Both devices are up to date, iPhone 8 and 2015 MBP.

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Is there any way to download all the photos from iCloud, not by the 1,000 limit load?

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