iCloud Will Not Let Me Select Download Location Before Starting to Download Photos - Mac

Question

ArchiMark Author

Level 1

4 points

iCloud Will Not Let Me Select Download Location Before Starting to Download Photos - Mac

Hope someone can please advise.

Have a ton of photos stored in iCloud.

I have MBP 2023 running Sequoia 15.5.

Want to download them to the new 4T external SSD I bought.

However, after selecting photos in iCloud and then clicking on the download button, it starts downloading a zip file right away without giving me a chance to select the download location.

When I searched on this topic, I found plenty of how-to's that say after selecting photos, I should then see a list of locations in the left sidebar. But in my case, there is no such listings in sidebar.

Really appreciate help resolving this.

Thank you.

Mark

MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 15.5

Posted on Jul 25, 2025 05:24 PM

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Answer 1

Jul 25, 2025 06:40 PM in response to ArchiMark

Before starting the download go to your browser settings and set the download location. In Safari on a Mac you can to that at the Safari menu (just right of the Apple menu at the top left of the screen) > Settings > General (at the top of the Settings window) > File download location.

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Answer 2

ArchiMark Author

Level 1

4 points

Jul 25, 2025 06:56 PM in response to FoxFifth

Thanks for the detailed directions!

I typically use Firefox, so, will first try to do what you suggest there.

If that doesn't work, then I'll use Safari.

Really appreciate your help as I was dreading having to download files to my MBP first and then transfer them to external SSD.

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Answer 3

ArchiMark Author

Level 1

4 points

Jul 28, 2025 09:32 PM in response to FoxFifth

Thanks again for your help.

The good news.....I did what you suggested and it worked in Firefox.

The bad news.....it only worked three times.

Now when I try to download another batch of photos, the download process does not stop, in the download progress window, it just keeps going and going....when it got to several GB's, I cancelled the process, as with the successful downloads were about 700 MB or so.

I tried downloading in Safari, but the same thing happens, download doesn't stop.

I tried signing out and then signing back in to iCloud, then downloading, but still have the same problem.

Any suggestions?

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Answer 4

ArchiMark Author

Level 1

4 points

Jul 29, 2025 05:15 PM in response to FoxFifth

Was trying to download close to the max number of photos, 999 total.

Don't think there are any videos included, but I'll have to take the time to check.

In meantime, I tried downloading a small batch of 20 and it worked.

Then a batch of 70 and it worked.

Will try a batch of 100 and see if it works....

Still have about 7,850 photos to go.....

:-)

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Answer 5

Jul 26, 2025 08:16 AM in response to ArchiMark

It will work in Firefox and other browsers as well. The only difference is how you change the download location. The details of that vary by browser.

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Answer 6

Jul 29, 2025 08:34 AM in response to ArchiMark

Any chance that the last attempt includes large videos instead of just photos?

You may want to try downloading a much smaller selection (e.g., 5 photos) and see if that works.

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