Export iCloud Photos to External Hard Drive

What I did was connect the external hard drive, then go

Safari > Preferences > General

The change the 'File download location' to a folder in your external hard drive.

Then go onto iCloud and select the photos you want and when you click download they'll all automatically download onto the external drive, skipping the computer completely. You'll still have to delete them from iCloud after you've copied them though.

Hope this helps

Is there a way to view the Smart Album pointing to external hard drive, and continue to view my photos on my iMac iPhoto?

I would simply copy the complete photos library to an external drive. If you want to view the videos in Photos double click the library on the external drive to watch your videos. To switch back to your main library double click the library on the internal drive. if the videos are working in the library on your external drive, you can delete them from the library on your system drive.

Any drive you use with a Photos Library should be directly connected, not a NAS, and have the file system format MacOS Extended (Journaled) or APFS (not case-sensitive). See: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7554757

Last year Apple removed unfortunately the option to select a range of photos in the Photos.app at once. So the answer from last year is no longer that easy to follow now. Previously we could simply click the "select" button, then hold down the Shift key and click the first and the last photo to select multiple photos. This "select" button has vanished from the iCloud interface. You will have to click each individual photo while holding down the command key ⌘ at www.icloud.com. The best you can do is to select a a complete moment. If you click the Share button you can select a moment, then edit the share mode and the photos remain selected.

If you have a Mac use the Photos.app to download from iCloud Photo Library. On a Windows PC use the iCloud control panel.

Hi,

I have similar question but not from iCloud. Apple Support rep told me to Select all from a Smart Album I created with all my videos to copy them all to external hard disk, and the order is out of whack, as the created/modified dated is not original but copy date, and name is sorted by IMG_xxx or MVI_xxxx.

I'm trying to make room on my iMac by removing the videos to external backup drives so I can view video from there.

I made an entire Smart Album created as Video/movie. What's best way to copy to external drive, and still have ability to view from that external hard drive vides when desired as ordered by the actual video created date instead of copy over to external hard disk date? Is there a way to view the Smart Album pointing to external hard drive, and continue to view my photos on my iMac iPhoto?

TIA

You could move your Photos Library to the external.

Article is for iPhoto, but the basics are the same.

iPhoto: Move your iPhoto library to a new location

Might be a tip in this support article that will work for you > Archive or make copies of your iCloud data - Apple Support

You could download them in batches from iCloud.com > photos and then move them to your external drive.

I have the same question. I can see Photos On Icloud, but wish to my external hard drive back up.

Did you ever find a solution for your problem? I'm having the same issue.

How do I download them "in batches"? (I'm asking you since this is an Apple recommended answer)