is there a way to download all of your iCloud photos without having to only select 1000 at a time?

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is there a way to download all of your iCloud photos without having to only select 1000 at a time?

i have had nothing but trouble trying to download all of my iCloud photos i have 40,000images and videos i need to download i have gone though most of it already and most of the time i will set up two or three downloads so 2,000-3,000 items to download and then when i return they have failed to download.. even one at a time is sometimes failing or erroring out on me..this is highly frustrating as i am running out of room on my 2 tb cloud drive and i want to move it all to my external drive on my computer now i set it up for the downloads to go there but they are not finishing. without knowing where i left off as completed i think im downloading some of the same stuff twice. and again sometimes its not even downloading..

Posted on Dec 17, 2022 10:30 AM

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Answer 1

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jimmerz Author

Level 1

50 points

Dec 19, 2022 09:12 PM in response to bruno75

no its not 15,000 at a time. the downloads are no more than 3,000 photos at at time 2 or 3 downloads of 1000 items each which was not working and so i can only do one at a time but even that is sometimes throwing an error. iCloud photos will only let me select up to 1000 items per download, it will also only allow me to delete up to 1000 items per instance.

my exact steps are

1) i open my browser and log into iCloud.com

2)then go to photos

3) select 1000 photos and click download.

the failed message appears in the download drop down menu of the safari browser you click the download icon in the upper right hand corner of safari where you can see the status of your current and previous downloads. some of them say download failed with a little orange triangle and and exclamation point inside of it, and nothing more. i have my power settings set to never turn off the hard drives or the screen so that a sleep or power nap wouldn't affect the download. all of my software is up to date. at this point i think i have managed to get most of what i was looking for from another service i had as a redundant back up and have disabled iCloud photos. i can still download them for 30 days so if you want to try and see if we can figure this out i'm more than happy to keep tinkering.

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Answer 2

tygb

Level 9

64,974 points

Dec 20, 2022 05:43 AM in response to jimmerz

Photos can’t be transferred directly from iCloud to an external hard drive for that you need to set up iCloud photo library see the article Set up and use iCloud Photos - Apple

And its preferences Change preferences in Photos on Mac - Apple open finder > Go > home > your user name > pictures either drag and drop Photos Library.photoslibrary to an external hard drive , the second method is right click on Photos Library.photoslibrary and click on show package contents in the upcoming column , you can also drag and drop complete masters folder to an external hard drive that is connected .

Also as per the article Back up the library in Photos on Mac - Apple

Manually copy your library to an external storage device: Drag the Photos library (by default in the Pictures folder on your Mac) to your storage device to create a copy.See this article also

Photos library - Move your Library to an external storage device

As you mentioned - as i am running out of room on my 2 tb cloud drive .

You can also manage the iCloud storage by deleting extra storage consumed see the steps in this article Manage your iCloud storage - Apple Support

Or Downgrade the storage plan from existing storage to free 5GB Downgrade or cancel your iCloud+ plan - Apple Support

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Answer 3

tygb

Level 9

64,974 points

Dec 21, 2022 12:14 AM in response to jimmerz

Photos can't be directly dragged and dropped to the external hard drive icon that is shown in the finder .

A second method is export photos from system photo library to a desired location say download folder in finder and connect an external hard drive to the Mac , then transfer the photos from download folders into the external hard drive , hence all your photo data is saved .

You can select few photos see this article Select and deselect photos in Photos on Mac - Apple Support and delete to recently deleted folder see this article Delete photos or recover deleted ones in Photos on Mac - Apple Support ( its your choice to delete them permanently immediately or after 30 days the photos will be removed from the iCloud server ) .

In this way the complete photo data is still on an external hard drive , but the space is reduced in photo library .

See this article to export photos Export photos, videos, and slideshows from Photos on Mac - Apple Support

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Answer 4

muguy

Level 10

89,990 points

Dec 21, 2022 01:26 PM in response to jimmerz

That’s not an issue. If you move your photo library to your external drive it will still sync provided it is the system library and iCloud Photos is enabled. Just ensure that the external drive is formatted as per Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support

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Answer 5

jimmerz Author

Level 1

50 points

Dec 20, 2022 07:44 AM in response to muguy

yes that is ideal however the problem is my internal drive on the computer is smaller than the size of my cloud drive and the iCloud drive is full of photos 2 terabytes to be exact.

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Answer 6

jimmerz Author

Level 1

50 points

Dec 20, 2022 08:54 PM in response to tygb

i was not downloading them to the internal iMac hard drive. i was downloading them to the external drive.

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Answer 7

jimmerz Author

Level 1

50 points

Dec 20, 2022 07:38 AM in response to tygb

you can transfer them as compressed files, if you are logged in via safari web browser to iCloud.com. It was working and i was downloading them from the iCloud web client in safari right to my hard drive as compressed files. then it was decompressing them into the download folder i selected on the external drive.. you can download right to the external..its under safari preferences you can choose where your downloads go. the problem i was having was sometimes the download would fail to complete or the decompression phase would fail and im not sure why. but if i do what you are saying by dragging and dropping the photo library to an external drive it should sync the images to that drive as well as download them though the actual photo app rather than trying to go though the web browser log in?

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Answer 8

bruno75

Community Specialist

Dec 19, 2022 03:59 PM in response to jimmerz

Hey there jimmerz,

With trying to download 40,000 from iCloud Photos, that is quite a lot of photos, and therefore will take quite a while to download. Since you're doing it in batches of up to 15,000 from the details you provided, but are having issues with doing that as well, we recommend making the amount of photos you download at the same time much smaller.

With the above in mind, we'd like to better understand what's happening by confirming more details, along with ruling out some general possible causes:

Which exact steps are you taking to download photos to your external storage? Are you copying them from the Photos app to your external storage? The more details you provide, the better we'll understand what's happening.
Do the failed messages you're seeing include any other details/information about what may have caused the photos to not download to your external storage?
Sometimes unexpected behavior can be resolved with a restart. Check out the section 'Restart' here: Log out, sleep, wake, restart, or shut down your Mac
If you have a compatible Mac model, the latest version is macOS 13.1. You can verify this by clicking on the Apple logo at the top left corner of the screen, then on ‘About This Mac’. In case you needed it, this link shows how to first back up, then Update macOS on Mac.

Cheers!

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Answer 9

tygb

Level 9

64,974 points

Dec 20, 2022 08:09 PM in response to jimmerz

Rather compressing the files and downloading them and exporting photos to download folder in finder it will not work as internal Macintosh hard drive space is less as compared to iCloud storage , first reduce the iCloud storage space by deleting extra photos ( select in small numbers and delete permanently ) also manage the iCloud storage see this thread also Cloud and Hard Drive - Apple Community

See these articles .

Save space on your MacBook Air - Apple Support

How to free up storage space on your Mac - AppleSupport

Find and delete files on your Mac - Apple Support

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