Downloading edited photos from iCloud not working

Question

Level 1

24 points

Downloading edited photos from iCloud not working

I often edit photos heavily in my iPhone and until recently, have downloaded photos from iCloud with those edits intact.

Today however, I noticed that the originals were downloading instead of the edited versions. I noticed that if you click "More Dowloand Options," you have 3 options: 1) download originals 2) downloaded edited images in high resolution or 3) download edited images in "most compatible" format.

I chose option 2, but when I did, the originals were downloaded without editing.

Only when I chose option #3 could I download edited images, BUT when I downloaded more than one at a time, the editing was again lost in favor of downloading the images.

So, at present, it appears that I can only download edited images by doing them one by one using option #3 with no option to download the highest resolution images.

Note that I do not download to Photos since I prefer to organize them into folders my own way.

Anyone know how to download batches of edited images in High Res? Anyone know how to make that the default?

iMac, macOS 10.13

Posted on Oct 8, 2023 9:55 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Karaella

Level 1

12 points

Oct 16, 2023 12:52 PM in response to billforeman

I think I found the answer !

Downloading edited photos from iCloud

eccoboy

Author

User level:

Level 1

5 points

Oct 16, 2023 3:22 AM in response to eccoboy

Solution: selecting "unmodified originals" downloads a zip file of the EDITED photos. Yes, it's backwards. I need to select "unmodified" if I want to see the edits that I made to photos (mostly cropping and rotating). My guess is this is related to me using an old phone and an outdated iOS. And I noticed last week on my work phone (iPhone 11 I think) that photos are in some new HEVC format so that could be why there are additional options for downloading photos now. My iPhone 6 still uses JPEG or JPG so that could be why the new download options don't function properly. But at least I figured out how to download the edited photos.

Reply

Answer 2

billforeman Author

Level 1

24 points

Oct 8, 2023 6:46 PM in response to billforeman

I should mention that I've been downloading edited photos from iCloud as the default for years, so this is a new change.

Also, that one sentence above should say, "Only when I chose option #3 could I download edited images, BUT when I downloaded more than one at a time, the editing was again lost in favor of downloading the original images."

I suspect this is a way to force me to use Photos...

Reply

Answer 3

Oct 10, 2023 6:27 AM in response to billforeman

I have the exact same thing, contacted apple support already, some nitwit told me this was "expected behaviour". Funny, for me it seems a bug. Also filed a case for this, but no reply yet. Using amazon photos upload for now, that uploads the edited jpEgs

Reply

Answer 4

billforeman Author

Level 1

24 points

Oct 16, 2023 6:25 PM in response to Karaella

selecting "unmodified originals" definitely does not work for me.

but after testing it again today, the other two options (#2 and #3 in my original post) do seem to be working now even when multiple photos are selected.

so maybe Apple fixed the glitch?

Reply