privacy.apple.com download issue

By local drive I mean SSD separate from my Mac. I actually was able to download the backup today after deleting and requesting a new backup. Also, people that utilize the cloud storage that’s larger than their Mac hardware can’t keep an entire local copy, you have to download the material and export to a standalone drive. Again, thanks for following the trend of completely useless responses in the apple support forum.

Having this same problem, yes it's synched but I want a backup copy of my data on a local drive. This problem exists accross multiple platforms and browsers, I've even changed network connections and it persists. Seems to be an ongoing issue with apple servers but all the support sites place blame on the end users.

Your backup would be your Time Machine(or similar) backup that you keep off your data. Downloading a copy to your Mac makes little sense as the documents are already on the Mac. Should the Mac fail, you will lose your data.

Great! You should connect your external drive and use Time Machine to create a comprehensive backup of your system. iCloud does not offer backup for Macs, that's what Time machine (or its equivalent) is for. If you have more files than space, you'll likely have two external drives; one for your files and the other for your backup.

Do you not already have the photos synced to your Mac, PC, or phone?