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Amazing question with nobody really answering your question 100%. The answer is : it's hard. If you only have a iphone and more photos on your icloud than can

Amazing question with nobody really answering your question 100%. The answer is : it's hard. If you only have a iphone and more photos on your icloud than can fit on your phone, you're kinda screwed if you don't know what you're doing. AFAIK Apple makes it very difficult to get all your icloud photos bulk downloaded, original quality off icloud. Google is no better. It's much easier to start backing up from the beginning but once you're stuck on icloud it's hard.

pariainterpares 16d ago
Not a very good answer. If you have a Mac with sufficient storage, you can just enable iCloud to store photos locally, then export them. That could miss some data (I think descriptions you set for a photo were not exported the last time I checked), but it is most of the data.
- skylurk 15d ago
  Do you need to export them? Can you not copy the library file to a different drive?
- wallst07 15d ago
  I didn't answer because it's had and I'd rather not give a incorrect answer. And, I may have conflated issues: Iphone Storage < Icloud storage vs opposite way.
doubled112 16d ago
I seem to remember being able to select all of the photos in iCloud in a browser and clicking download. It zips them and it worked. I would imagine this doesn't work well after a certain amount of data. I’m also not sure they were the originals.
TeMPOraL 16d ago
Yup. Only reason I'm on OneDrive is that they don't mess with photos and their metadata. For now, at least. I guess it's because the core offering is still some version of "a folder that syncs", and the photo gallery is just a view bolted on top. I steer clear of any solutions scoped to photos only, as it always turns out they either screw you up by reducing quality and throwing away the originals, or trying to lock you in by only offering metadata they keep in a database they will not let you export.
wuschel 15d ago
I did not try it, and I am nervous the day I need to - but I think there are some solutions to export photos from the Apple technology stack using open source software [1,2,3]. I remember seeing a longer blogpost re the topic of retroengineering the Apple phot sync story, but I could not find it. [1] github.com/rcarmo/PhotosExport [2] https://github.com/craigtrim/icloud-photo-export https://github.com/craigtrim/icloud-photo-export [3] https://icloud-photos-downloader.github.io/icloud_photos_downloader/ https://icloud-photos-downloader.github.io/icloud_photos_dow...

pariainterpares 16d ago

Not a very good answer. If you have a Mac with sufficient storage, you can just enable iCloud to store photos locally, then export them. That could miss some data (I think descriptions you set for a photo were not exported the last time I checked), but it is most of the data.

skylurk 15d ago
Do you need to export them? Can you not copy the library file to a different drive?
wallst07 15d ago
I didn't answer because it's had and I'd rather not give a incorrect answer. And, I may have conflated issues: Iphone Storage < Icloud storage vs opposite way.

doubled112 16d ago

I seem to remember being able to select all of the photos in iCloud in a browser and clicking download. It zips them and it worked. I would imagine this doesn't work well after a certain amount of data. I’m also not sure they were the originals.

TeMPOraL 16d ago

Yup. Only reason I'm on OneDrive is that they don't mess with photos and their metadata. For now, at least. I guess it's because the core offering is still some version of "a folder that syncs", and the photo gallery is just a view bolted on top. I steer clear of any solutions scoped to photos only, as it always turns out they either screw you up by reducing quality and throwing away the originals, or trying to lock you in by only offering metadata they keep in a database they will not let you export.

wuschel 15d ago

I did not try it, and I am nervous the day I need to - but I think there are some solutions to export photos from the Apple technology stack using open source software [1,2,3]. I remember seeing a longer blogpost re the topic of retroengineering the Apple phot sync story, but I could not find it. [1] github.com/rcarmo/PhotosExport [2] https://github.com/craigtrim/icloud-photo-export https://github.com/craigtrim/icloud-photo-export [3] https://icloud-photos-downloader.github.io/icloud_photos_downloader/ https://icloud-photos-downloader.github.io/icloud_photos_dow...