iCloud for PC and iCloud Photos

Ok, I thought I understood this, but I guess I don't. Following the instructions to set up iCloud Photos on my laptop PC (Windows 10), I downloaded and installed iCloud on my PC. I opened iCloud on my PC and selected iCloud Photos under the Photos option. When everything was installed I see two new folders in the Windows Side bar: iCloud Drive, and iCloud Photos. When I click on iCloud Photos, it appears that thumbnails of my entire Photo Library is downloaded to my PC. This is not what I expected or wanted to happen. It seems that all of the thumbnails are never completely rendered and they certainly not in any kind of order. Scrolling through the thumbnails constantly reveals generic icons which eventually do a show a picture. We' talking about over 14,700 photos. I thought only new photos that I add to the Photos library in iCloud would be added to my PC.

Is this right? I can't find any additional insights to using iCloud Photos other than what I've done so far. I don't want all my photos on my PC. I want to be able to download photos from an SC card inserted in my laptop to eventually get uploaded to iCloud Photos. I only want to download certain photos to the laptop.

I'm totally confused now on this should work.

Thanks for any additional advice.

Ed

Hi Judy,

Thanks for your prompt reply. I'm pretty sure I'm running Windows 10 on my laptop. It is up to date. I'm not as familiar with Windows 10 as I am with the OS X 10.15, and I'm not exactly sure where to find the information on the operating system. I bought the laptop with Windows 10, and I have not upgraded to Windows 11.

Thanks,

Ed

I want to thank everyone for all the advice. I thought I would re-state the issue and provide some additional information, as well as the steps I've taken. My main computer is an iMac (late 2012) which runs OS X 10.15.7 (Catalina). I also use an iPad and iPhone both of which have the latest iOS operating system. I use iCloud and all my photos appear on my iMac, iPhone and iPad. Everything works fine.

Due to an upcoming move of my household, I will need to pack up my iMac for moving so I won't be able to use it for an indeterminate period of time. I also use an HP Envy laptop running the latest version of Windows 10. I've had no problems working with both computers, sharing files, etc, but for my professional work, I need certain programs that only work with Windows 10 PC. So I will be needing to use my Windows 10 PC while my iMac is unavailable. Since I already use iCloud, I am interested in using iCloud for Windows to add new photos taken with my DSLR to iCloud using iCloud Photos for Windows so that they will available for editing on either my iPhone or iPad. From what I've read both on Apple's support pages and from some other replies I've received in this thread this should be doable. Unfortunately it doesn't appear to work as advertised.

I've downloaded and installed the latest version of iCloud for Windows from the Microsoft Store following the instructions. The download and install went fine and I was able to Sign In to my iCloud account with out problems. I followed the directions to set up iCloud for Windows and chose the appropriate options in Photos. So far everything seems fine. When I open iCloud I see two new folders in the File Explorer window; iCloud Drive and iCloud Photos. When I click on iCloud Photos it appears as though my entire Photos Library is downloaded as thumbnails to the iCloud Photos folder. Initially generic icons are seen, which eventually show up as thumbnail pictures, however there is no organization at all to the photos, and it seems I can never completely view all the photos. The file window is constantly updating the generic icons with photo thumbnails as I scroll through the photos. This is not what I was expecting! According to Apple's Support pages and the advice I've gotten here in this forum, only new photos should be downloaded to the PC. That would be any photos added to my Photos Library after I set up iCloud for Windows on my PC. I don't want all my photos on my PC.

Finally I did talk to Apple Support today and the specialist with whom I talked only read to me the articles from Apple Support pages, which I already knew. This was after she told me that I needed iTunes for Windows to do this. She didn't really help that much. I also have run across some YouTube tutorials regarding the installation and use of iCloud for Windows, one of which mentioned using an older version of iCloud for Windows that works perfectly fine with Windows 10, but I'm not sure which version that would be.

Has anyone else experienced this? Is there a fix? Can anyone point me to other resources for using iCloud for Windows? Is this the most appropriate forum to post this question? I'd really appreciate the advice. Thank you in advance. I'll continue to search myself and will post back any information or any solutions that I might come across.

Thank you for reading!!

Edward Fritzen

Yes, this is exactly what I want to do. I see now where that is stated when setting up iCloud Photos on my Windows PC. Thanks for the links.

Ed