How do I ‘Download and Keep Originals’ photos of the button is not showing up within iCloud photos?

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How do I ‘Download and Keep Originals’ photos of the button is not showing up within iCloud photos?

Recently I decided to turn off putting my photos on iCloud because I had too many photos and not enough iCloud storage to be able to backup my phone. But by turning off iCloud for my photos, I then got an email telling me to go and Download and Keep Originals for the photos but there is no button allowing me to do so. Does this mean that the original photos are already downloaded on my phone?

Posted on Aug 30, 2018 1:04 AM

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Answer 1

MoonJ.

Community Specialist

Aug 30, 2018 5:42 PM in response to meegyu

Hi, meegyu,

Thanks for visiting the Apple Support Communities. If I'm to understand your post, you were previously using iCloud Photo Library on your iPhone, but have since turned it off. Now you're receiving an email to download the original photos, but you don't see a way to do that. I'm happy to help!

iCloud Photo Library offers a feature called Optimize Storage, which will allow you to upload your pictures to iCloud and keep the original copies there. You still have access to the pictures on your iPhone while iCloud Storage Library is on, but there isn't a full version of the picture saved to the phone. This is to free up space on your phone if it's needed.

If you have Optimize Storage on and turn off iCloud Photo Library, you'll be asked at that time if you want to download and keep the originals. Since you won't have access to photos in iCloud with iCloud Photo Library off, this question wants to know if you'd like to download the pictures back onto the phone before turning iCloud Photo Library off. If you choose to download and keep the originals, the download will automatically occur. If you choose not to download and keep the originals, you'll still be able to view the pictures on other devices using iCloud Photo Library.

Are the pictures currently in your Photos app on the iPhone? If so, they're downloaded onto the phone. If they're not, you can turn iCloud Photo Library back on, then off again, choosing the option to download and keep. You can get more information on iCloud Photo Library in the following articles:

iCloud Photo Library - Apple Support

iCloud: What is iCloud Photo Library?

iCloud: iCloud Photo Library on iOS devices

Get help with your iCloud Photo Library - Apple Support

Get help with missing photos - Apple Support

Cheers!

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How do I ‘Download and Keep Originals’ photos of the button is not showing up within iCloud photos?

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