photos from iCloud to laptop

Hi -

First, in Icloud, how much space is taken by photos. You can check from your phone.

How much space is on your mac (you will need more space than is in Icloud, because on the mac, photos needs a database and a bunch of support files (thumbnails, previews etc). I have 50GB in Icloud, but 84GB on my mac for the same photos.

Unless you have plenty of free space and we find a way of solving the message, your best bet might be to put your mac photos library on an external drive. If you do this, you will need one that is USB3 or faster (USB C and Thunderbolt will also be fine).

Also if you don't already have a backup in place, I'd also recommend getting a second external drive for a timemachine backup. Upgrading computers and phones is the classic way people manage to lose their photos (As I think you know which is why you want to have them downloaded) and in any case, if you value your pictures you should always have them backed up (Icloud is not a backup).

Then you can move your library to the external drive as described here (paying particular attention to the drive preparation):

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201517

When you have your library on a drive with plenty of space, make sure it is set to the system library (Photos preferences) - enable Icloud photos on your mac, and everything will sync from Icloud into your library.

If you need any more help with any of this, feel free to get back.

I think that is a range identifier rather than a model number.

Im pretty certain that is USB3. If you use time machine it will automatically backup the whole system. It will take more time, but is easier to just let it do that. You can only stop it by excluding specific folders, but then you have to go and exclude everything you don't want, rather than saying what you do want.

If you just want to manually copy your existing library and some files onto the drive, then you will need to make sure you format it properly first as shown in the link I posted above.

See here:

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201250

(existing Data on the disk will be erased if you use time machine so make sure nothing is on it that you want)

photos a little blurry - can you see a model number on it? A close up of the USB connector on the drive might help also. Are you intending this one for time maching backup, or external library?

For time machine it really needs to be 2 or 3 times the capacity of your system boot drive.

The problem with Icloud for photos is it makes all the libraries across all the devices the same. While it does protect you from a drive failure - it doesn't protect you from accidental deletion. If you delete photos on your phone, they are deleted on your mac, and from Icloud - same if you delete on your mac - they'll be deleted on your phone. There have been rare cases of system failure also causing deletions (or just user error). There are also numerous examples of library corruption making it very difficult to access photos.

Every few days we get someone here saying "I deleted photos - how can I get them back". If it was more than 30 days ago, and there is no other backup, the answer is "you can't"

You are welcome.

Just to check - you haven't chosen "optimise mac storage" to get the photos have you? This only downloads small versions of the photo.

EDIT: - Although it will work for a temporary backup solution even if it is only the same size as your boot drive, just to tide you over for the upgrade process.