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iCloud Photos Downloader

github.com

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Re: iCloud Photos Downloader

#121

Post by reconnecting »

js2 wrote: post #95
reconnecting wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone gave me a new iPhone (120GB) and a new MacBook Pro and asked me to download all their photos from iCloud. Long story short, after 120GB of photos were synchronised to the iPhone, the MacBook Pro refused to copy them, and now there's no storage left on the iPhone. Also, Photos on Mac doesn't have an option to download photos directly, so the only valid option Apple offers is to download them through the web in…

> Photos on Mac doesn't have an option to download photos directly Yes it does. It's called Download Originals to this Mac . https://support.apple.com/guide/photos/use-icloud-photos-pht... You keep asserting to the contrary, but I've been syncing my entire photos library to my Mac for years, since it was iPhoto even. Obviously if you have a larger photos library than storage space on a particular device, you cannot s…

This is from the iCloud manual:

> Any new photos and videos you add to Photos appear on all your devices that have iCloud Photos turned on.

You have your photos because they are new. If they had been taken before, they would not have synchronised automatically with Photos on MacOS.

Re: iCloud Photos Downloader

#123

Post by bicepjai »

stavros wrote: post #120
bicepjai wrote: post #117

Thanks for this project. Our family generates about 2TB of media a year, and it’s been like that for a while, so we’re sitting at roughly 12TB total. That’s very much the long tail of personal media. I’m not ready to pay $60/month, but I do like iCloud’s memories and other photo features. My compromise is simple: - I use docker-icloudpd to download our iCloud Photos to local storage over time. It’s been the most prac…

Does Photos have features you use that Immich doesn't? I've switched to the latter fully and love it (though I have an Android).

Music and AI features are still lagging in Immich, and I can understand why. Immich machine learning is not flushed out yet. If Immich has plans for creating marketplace for extensibility like plugins, in the current era of Claude code, I am sure we will end up with many options or features.

Re: iCloud Photos Downloader

#124

Post by coder543 »

reconnecting wrote: post #121
js2 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Photos on Mac doesn't have an option to download photos directly Yes it does. It's called Download Originals to this Mac . https://support.apple.com/guide/photos/use-icloud-photos-pht... You keep asserting to the contrary, but I've been syncing my entire photos library to my Mac for years, since it was iPhoto even. Obviously if you have a larger photos library than storage space on a particular device, you cannot s…

This is from the iCloud manual: > Any new photos and videos you add to Photos appear on all your devices that have iCloud Photos turned on. You have your photos because they are new. If they had been taken before, they would not have synchronised automatically with Photos on MacOS.

Please stop repeating your incorrect points that are contradicted by everyone else’s real experiences.

Yes, new ones will be uploaded. That doesn’t mean old ones won’t also be downloaded.

Re: iCloud Photos Downloader

#125

Post by reconnecting »

coder543 wrote: post #114
reconnecting wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using Mac since Mac OS X 10.4 (~2005) and was under the same impression. However, in reality, when you use the same Apple account on both devices with the Photos app on macOS (yes, with the 'Download Originals' checkbox enabled), it only downloads photos that you upload from your phone. And if you look at the iCloud tab in the Photos app, it says 'Automatically _upload_ and store all your photos and videos…

No, you are not correct. How many people have to tell you this? It absolutely works the way I said it does, because I have seen it work that way. Just because you accidentally turned off iCloud Photos in your Apple Account settings on that Mac (or some other similar issue) does not mean it does not work this way when properly signed in. If you want something to try, go to System Settings -> Apple Account -> Photos an…

When you take a new photo, it synchronises with all your devices, and therefore you see it on your Mac, iPhone, etc. However, if you get a new Mac (I got one because my library was under capacity), Photos will not start synchronising your 10-year-old photos until you process them through the phone.

I hope I've made it clear now.

Re: iCloud Photos Downloader

#126

Post by einsteinx2 »

reconnecting wrote: post #103
reddalo wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically, there is: users of the European Union can get a full export of all data that Apple has about them, including all the stored photos. It can be requested from here: https://privacy.apple.com/

It sounds really weird that instead of making a separate utility, or allowing you to download iCloud Photos in the native Photos application on Mac, Apple requires you to go through a legal procedure. I'm OK with clicking a button to download all photos to Mac, but there is no such button. Or maybe there was one previously, but it has now disappeared.

> or allowing you to download iCloud Photos in the native Photos application on Mac

Here’s the official documentation page for exporting directly using Photos for Mac without syncing everything locally: https://support.apple.com/guide/photos/download-photos-to-yo...

You can also choose to sync all photos locally with Photos for Mac by setting “Download Originals to this Mac” as described on this page which is what I do to keep a local copy: https://support.apple.com/guide/photos/photos-settings-pht51...

If your Mac doesn’t have enough space, export them to a USB hard drive or if you’re using the download originals option, first move your library location to the USB drive as also described on the link above.

Re: iCloud Photos Downloader

#127

Post by SchemaLoad »

reddalo wrote: post #21
reconnecting wrote: post #2

Surprisingly, there is no official way to download all (400 Gb) photos from iCloud. Here is an open-source command-line tool to download all your iCloud photos.

Technically, there is: users of the European Union can get a full export of all data that Apple has about them, including all the stored photos. It can be requested from here: https://privacy.apple.com/

Doesn't work if you have Advanced Data Protection (end to end encryption) enabled.

Re: iCloud Photos Downloader

#128

Post by coder543 »

reconnecting wrote: post #125
coder543 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you are not correct. How many people have to tell you this? It absolutely works the way I said it does, because I have seen it work that way. Just because you accidentally turned off iCloud Photos in your Apple Account settings on that Mac (or some other similar issue) does not mean it does not work this way when properly signed in. If you want something to try, go to System Settings -> Apple Account -> Photos an…

When you take a new photo, it synchronises with all your devices, and therefore you see it on your Mac, iPhone, etc. However, if you get a new Mac (I got one because my library was under capacity), Photos will not start synchronising your 10-year-old photos until you process them through the phone. I hope I've made it clear now.

Your point has been clear the whole time. It is still not correct.

Re: iCloud Photos Downloader

#129

Post by SchemaLoad »

rgovostes wrote: post #35

My concern with backing up iCloud Photos with anything but Apple Photos is that there are some proprietary formats like Live Photos and slow mo video for which exports are lossy. Also, Apple Photos stores all edits non-destructively, so 'flattening' the edits into a single file for export is also a lossy operation. It seems like an obvious improvement for Time Machine to support full backups while using optimized sto…

The most annoying thing for me is if you set the date for a photo, it gets stored externally rather than modifying the photo metadata. So when you switch platform, every photo which didn't originally have a captured at date ends up reset to the current day every time you move.

For edits, I don't care too much about just baking them in since it's unlikely I'm going back to old photos and want to undo the crop.

Re: iCloud Photos Downloader

#130

Post by reconnecting »

coder543 wrote: post #124
reconnecting wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is from the iCloud manual: > Any new photos and videos you add to Photos appear on all your devices that have iCloud Photos turned on. You have your photos because they are new. If they had been taken before, they would not have synchronised automatically with Photos on MacOS.

Please stop repeating your incorrect points that are contradicted by everyone else’s real experiences. Yes, new ones will be uploaded. That doesn’t mean old ones won’t also be downloaded.

I have tried 3 different Macs with different versions of macOS prior to looking for a workaround, and everywhere the result is the same: old photos are not downloaded automatically from iCloud, and there is no button to start this process - for this exact reason.

Want to prove me wrong? Create a new macOS user and open Photos with your iCloud. It will be empty until you start copying photos from your phone. It will take much less time than arguing here.

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