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iCloud photos download to external drive

I'm trying to download my iCloud photos to an external HD instead of my Mac computer hard drive. My issue is when I select the photos, then press the download arrow there is no choice, it is the Mac HD only. I do have the external HD connected to the Mac, but there is no place to select 'where' to download.

What am I missing? Thanks

iMac (M1, 2021)

Posted on Aug 27, 2023 12:23 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Aug 27, 2023 11:22 PM

Photos canā€™t be transferred directly from iCloud to an external hard drive for that you need to set up iCloud photo library see the articleĀ Set up and use iCloud Photos - AppleĀ 

And its preferencesĀ Change preferences in Photos on Mac - AppleĀ Ā 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 completeĀ masters folderĀ to an external hard drive that is connected .

Also as per the articleĀ Back up the library in Photos on Mac - AppleĀ 

Manually copy your library to an external storage device:Ā 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


2 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Aug 27, 2023 11:22 PM in response to DaddyOFTheMacDaddy

Photos canā€™t be transferred directly from iCloud to an external hard drive for that you need to set up iCloud photo library see the articleĀ Set up and use iCloud Photos - AppleĀ 

And its preferencesĀ Change preferences in Photos on Mac - AppleĀ Ā 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 completeĀ masters folderĀ to an external hard drive that is connected .

Also as per the articleĀ Back up the library in Photos on Mac - AppleĀ 

Manually copy your library to an external storage device:Ā 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


iCloud photos download to external drive

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