How do I access iPhone/iCloud photos on my laptop?

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Snufflepuff Author

Level 1

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How do I access iPhone/iCloud photos on my laptop?

I have 100 G of iCloud storage and all of my iPhone photos are presumably on it.

How do I view/download that entire library on my Mac? I can't at the moment transfer them from the iPhone, as my iOS is ahead of my OS, but if the photos are in the cloud already, I don't understand why I can't grab them from there. I imagine I can use a shared album to transfer select photos once I update my OS, but I'd like to have access to all photos.
I tried Airdropping 80 favorite photos to my laptop. My iPhone spent several minutes "downloading" the photos from iCloud, but when I checked the photos that arrived on my laptop, they were much smaller in file size/resolution. Several of the originals were lossless .pngs 6000 pixels wide, 20-30 Mb, and they arrived at fraction of the size. What happened?

Thanks for your help.

iPhone 6s, iOS 15

Posted on Oct 8, 2022 08:56 AM

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Answer 1

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FoxFifth

Community+ 2025

Level 10

475,041 points

Oct 8, 2022 09:39 AM in response to Snufflepuff

re: "I have 100 G of iCloud storage and all of my iPhone photos are presumably on it. "

You can use any internet browser and log into www.icloud.com and go to the Photos app there. The photos there are iCloud Photos. If you didn't have iCloud Photos turned on but did iCloud Backup, then the photos are in the Backup and cannot be viewed at iCloud.com but can be used to restore or setup an iPhone or iPad.

If you want all photos on your Mac and your iPhone to sync, turn on iCloud Photos in both devices. Note that it may take days for the first sync to complete.

See instructions in: See instructions in Set up and use iCloud Photos - Apple Support

If you only want to download some photos from iCloud to your Mac, you can do that from the Photos app at iCloud.com.

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How do I access iPhone/iCloud photos on my laptop?

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