On my mac, from facebook, how do i grab a photo or two from icloud?

Hey karenee!

Good question! Unfortunately storage will always be a factor. If your Mac doesn’t have enough storage, prompting you to “Optimize Storage” to save space on your Mac, I’m afraid that only downloading them locally will make them available to other apps or web browsers.

If that’s what’s going on and you don’t have “Download and keep originals” selected in Photos > Preferences > iCloud. But rather, “Optimize Storage”, to save Mac storage:

I’ve found that utilizing an external hard drive to store my photos is the best solution, if, either I don’t want to upgrade my iCloud storage for any reason, or, as in your case, need the originals stored locally on your Mac to be available for such tasks.

You can get an external drive fairly cheap, move or create your Photos Library on that drive, and designate it as the default “System” Library, to automatically sync your Photos, while using “Download and keep originals” this way they sync with your other devices, and are instantly available locally for other services to use, as Facebook, etc.

Hope that helps!

Designate a System Photo Library in Photos:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204414

Hello karenee,

Thanks for using the Apple Support Communities. We understand that you have questions on how to access your original photos on your Mac. Check out article, Download iCloud photos and videos for details on how to access photos from your Mac.

In regard to Facebook, you should still be able to use the same process as before, Using Facebook, by taping the icon to add a photo, select Photos in the popup box and select the photos you'd like add to your post. There isn't a need to download them directly to your device for this process.

You can also, simply open the Photos app and drag and drop a photo to your post. There is no need to have the downloaded original for this process.

Hope this helps.

Hello karenee,

Thanks for following up. After doing a bit of research, we think the issue may be related to the System Photo Library you're using. Check out the following article, and follow the direction here to see if there's another Photo Library and try switching to see if that helps.

Designate a System Photo Library in Photos

Best wishes.