copy photos from icloud storage to hard drive

As per this article What is iCloud storage? - Apple Support

When you sign up for iCloud, you automatically get 5 GB of free storage. You can choose which apps and features store information in iCloud by turning iCloud features on or off.

Open Mac system preferences > iCloud > click on manage > again click on photos the photo storage data is saved in this location , you can't copy photos from here to an external hard drive connected to Mac Use external storage devices with Mac - Apple Support

Rather follow this method .

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 Set up and use iCloud Photos - Apple Supporthttps://support.apple.com › en-in

And its preferences Change preferences in Photos on Mac - Apple Supporthttps://support.apple.com › en-in › guide › photos › mac  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 Back up the library in Photos on Mac - Apple Supporthttps://support.apple.com › en-in › guide › photos › 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