How do I download photos from icloud to an external drive, so I can save them and not delete them?

Open the Photos App and find the photos you wish to move to external drive. Select them, and then go to the File Menu->Export option to export them to the external drive.

If you are not using the Photos app on the Mac, or don't have the iCloud Photos option turned on in System Preferences->iCloud, then log in to the https://icloud.com website with your Apple ID and use the Photos App there to download the Photos stored in iCloud to the external drive.

No. You will have to manually delete them from either the Photos App on your Mac or the Photos App in iCloud after copying them to the external drive to remove them from iCloud.

Do so, once you are sure they have successfully been copied to the external drive and came be seen and accessed correctly.

Note that deleting them from iCloud will also delete them from any other device accessing that iCloud account that also has iCloud Photos turned on.

I'm trying to do the same thing following all the directions i found on the apple website but when I donwload them form icloud photos they are not in chronological order. Do you know how to solve this?

You may not be able to.

For Chronological order to work, the created date in the images meta data must be retained. If the copy process changes that date to the date you downloaded them, then all the photos will have that same "new" data and there would be no way to order them.

See here: link-> https://www.fireebok.com/resource/how-to-retain-the-original-date-with-the-downloaded-icloud-photos.html