iCloud Photos Downloader • Hacker News Board

Re: iCloud Photos Downloader

#241

Post by varenc » Tue, Jan 13, 2026, 4:06 AM UTC

lostlogin wrote: post #75

varenc wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I backup ~3-4GB a day with Time Machine to my local NAS and it takes less 10 minutes. Albeit it should take 30 seconds if it was maxing out the network speed.

I’ve done the sudo sysctl debug.lowpri_throttle_enabled=0 . But it’s still slow. 10 minutes is great, and my changes wouldn’t seem as extensive as yours. I need to dig deeper.

A huge chunk of that 3-4GB is large files that have minor changes. Time Machine doesn't have any sort of delta support so backups the entire file again, like my local Messages or Contacts database. But I think slowness is caused by file count, not file size, so even though it's backing up 3GB+, the total number of files changes isn't that high. (I suspect).

I also use a modified version of this script[0] to identify everything that changed in the most recent Time Machine backup. This is hugely helpful and lets me find unimportant things that are the source of lots of unimportant changes which I can then exclude with `tmux addexclusion -p `. For example I exclude 'node_modules' folders for anything that gets regularly updated. This removes ~10k files that would otherwise be wastefully backed up. Speeding it up is much more about reducing file count than total size.

[0] https://github.com/nlfiedler/timedog (though its woefully out of date, and I had to make some hacky patches to it to get it working)

Re: iCloud Photos Downloader

#242

Post by bunnyfoofoo » Tue, Jan 13, 2026, 12:24 PM UTC

gerdemb wrote: post #141

HN disclosure: I’m the author of Photos Backup Anywhere, but this thread mirrors the exact issues that pushed me to write it. One thing that surprised me when digging into Apple Photos is how much state isn’t represented by just files-on-disk. Albums, Live Photos (paired assets), bursts, slo-mo, edits, and even “simple” things like adjusted capture dates are all tracked separately, and most export/backup tools end up…

Hey @gerdemb, just wanted to say thank you. Bought this because of your comment and this worked perfectly for backing up my 1TB photo library.

Re: iCloud Photos Downloader

#243

Post by rhettbull » Tue, Jan 13, 2026, 5:58 PM UTC

gerdemb wrote: post #141

HN disclosure: I’m the author of Photos Backup Anywhere, but this thread mirrors the exact issues that pushed me to write it. One thing that surprised me when digging into Apple Photos is how much state isn’t represented by just files-on-disk. Albums, Live Photos (paired assets), bursts, slo-mo, edits, and even “simple” things like adjusted capture dates are all tracked separately, and most export/backup tools end up…

> As far as I know, this is the only tool that restores albums and correctly round-trips all Photos item types while preserving location data, creation dates, and modification dates when restoring back into Photos.

My free open source tool osxphotos [1] does this. In addition to an "osxphotos export" command to create archival exports with all metadata, it also has an "osxphotos import" command that can restore all metadata including albums (with exception of named persons/face regions, though persons can be converted into keywords on import). It can also read XMP sidecar files to restore metadata from those. It's a CLI and definitely a power user tool.

It also includes an "osxphotos sync" command that can sync metadata between two libraries. Some people use this to sync metadata like favorites from iPhone library to the Mac library. (can't go the other way unfortunately)

[1] https://github.com/RhetTbull/osxphotos

Re: iCloud Photos Downloader

#244

Post by allarm » Tue, Jan 13, 2026, 8:13 PM UTC

rhettbull wrote: post #243

gerdemb wrote: post #141

HN disclosure: I’m the author of Photos Backup Anywhere, but this thread mirrors the exact issues that pushed me to write it. One thing that surprised me when digging into Apple Photos is how much state isn’t represented by just files-on-disk. Albums, Live Photos (paired assets), bursts, slo-mo, edits, and even “simple” things like adjusted capture dates are all tracked separately, and most export/backup tools end up…

> As far as I know, this is the only tool that restores albums and correctly round-trips all Photos item types while preserving location data, creation dates, and modification dates when restoring back into Photos. My free open source tool osxphotos [1] does this. In addition to an "osxphotos export" command to create archival exports with all metadata, it also has an "osxphotos import" command that can restore all m…

I use your tool to backup my photo library, it's been working great! Thank you so much for this amazing piece of software.

Re: iCloud Photos Downloader

#245

Post by rhettbull » Tue, Jan 13, 2026, 8:54 PM UTC

allarm wrote: post #244

rhettbull wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As far as I know, this is the only tool that restores albums and correctly round-trips all Photos item types while preserving location data, creation dates, and modification dates when restoring back into Photos. My free open source tool osxphotos [1] does this. In addition to an "osxphotos export" command to create archival exports with all metadata, it also has an "osxphotos import" command that can restore all m…

I use your tool to backup my photo library, it's been working great! Thank you so much for this amazing piece of software.

Glad it's useful for you!

Re: iCloud Photos Downloader

#246

Post by gerdemb » Tue, Jan 13, 2026, 9:34 PM UTC

hackeman300 wrote: post #217

gerdemb wrote: post #141

HN disclosure: I’m the author of Photos Backup Anywhere, but this thread mirrors the exact issues that pushed me to write it. One thing that surprised me when digging into Apple Photos is how much state isn’t represented by just files-on-disk. Albums, Live Photos (paired assets), bursts, slo-mo, edits, and even “simple” things like adjusted capture dates are all tracked separately, and most export/backup tools end up…

If you manually edit the date on a photo, is that also stored separately from the image file itself? Wondering because I've noticed photos I've backed up to Immich from iOS photos don't respect that edited date and reflect whatever the original date was. I've been thinking about looking into a fix for this since it's bugged me a bit.

Yes — in Apple Photos the manually edited date/time is not written back into the image or video file. It’s stored separately in the Photos library database, which is why tools like Immich usually fall back to the original capture date in EXIF / QuickTime metadata.

Photos Backup Anywhere does handle this case: it reads the adjusted date from the Photos library and stores that modified timestamp in its own SQLite database, linked to the backed-up file, so the edited date isn’t lost even though the file itself isn’t rewritten.

Re: iCloud Photos Downloader

#247

Post by gerdemb » Tue, Jan 13, 2026, 9:36 PM UTC

darkteflon wrote: post #240

gerdemb wrote: post #141

HN disclosure: I’m the author of Photos Backup Anywhere, but this thread mirrors the exact issues that pushed me to write it. One thing that surprised me when digging into Apple Photos is how much state isn’t represented by just files-on-disk. Albums, Live Photos (paired assets), bursts, slo-mo, edits, and even “simple” things like adjusted capture dates are all tracked separately, and most export/backup tools end up…

This is a great app! Thanks, I bought it. I'm backing up to a network share over SMB. Just wanted to let you know that the error message in the event that the share becomes unmounted during a backup is a bit obscure: it just says "pdb.sqlite" doesn't exist. Stopping and restarting the backup fixes it. Might be helpful to provide some clearer error handling / messaging and guidance for disappearing network shares?

Thanks or the detailed feedback.

You’re right about that error message. What’s happening is that when the SMB share gets unmounted, the app can no longer access its SQLite database (pba.sqlite), and the resulting error isn’t very user-friendly. I agree it would be much clearer to explicitly detect a missing or unmounted network share and provide guidance.

I’ve added this to my list of things to improve. Thanks again for taking the time to report it — feedback like this is super helpful.

Re: iCloud Photos Downloader

#248

Post by gerdemb » Tue, Jan 13, 2026, 9:38 PM UTC

supermatt wrote: post #197

gerdemb wrote: post #141

HN disclosure: I’m the author of Photos Backup Anywhere, but this thread mirrors the exact issues that pushed me to write it. One thing that surprised me when digging into Apple Photos is how much state isn’t represented by just files-on-disk. Albums, Live Photos (paired assets), bursts, slo-mo, edits, and even “simple” things like adjusted capture dates are all tracked separately, and most export/backup tools end up…

Is the app bound to the purchasers iCloud, or can I also use it to download my partners images?

Yes — Photos Backup Anywhere supports Apple Family Sharing

If the app is shared via Family Sharing, each family member can install and use it on their own Mac with their own iCloud Photos library. The app works with whichever Photos library is signed into macOS on that machine, so you can absolutely use it to back up your partner’s images as well.

Re: iCloud Photos Downloader

#249

Post by gerdemb » Tue, Jan 13, 2026, 9:39 PM UTC

scoot wrote: post #230

gerdemb wrote: post #141

HN disclosure: I’m the author of Photos Backup Anywhere, but this thread mirrors the exact issues that pushed me to write it. One thing that surprised me when digging into Apple Photos is how much state isn’t represented by just files-on-disk. Albums, Live Photos (paired assets), bursts, slo-mo, edits, and even “simple” things like adjusted capture dates are all tracked separately, and most export/backup tools end up…

This looks interesting. Can I use it to back up photos from one (old) photo library, and restore them into another (newer) one?

Yes — that’s exactly what it’s designed for. You can back up photos from one Photos library and later restore them into a different Photos library. The restore process recreates the items in the target library using the data stored in the backup.

Re: iCloud Photos Downloader

#250

Post by gerdemb » Tue, Jan 13, 2026, 9:41 PM UTC

ubermonkey wrote: post #220

gerdemb wrote: post #141

HN disclosure: I’m the author of Photos Backup Anywhere, but this thread mirrors the exact issues that pushed me to write it. One thing that surprised me when digging into Apple Photos is how much state isn’t represented by just files-on-disk. Albums, Live Photos (paired assets), bursts, slo-mo, edits, and even “simple” things like adjusted capture dates are all tracked separately, and most export/backup tools end up…

I'm extremely interested in any process that would allow me to create file-system-level backups of individual photos. Will your tool do that?

Yes — that’s exactly what Photos Backup Anywhere is designed to do.

The app creates file-system-level backups of each individual photo and video from your Photos library. Every asset is exported as a real file on disk (HEIC, JPEG, MOV, etc.), not a database blob or package, so you can browse, copy, verify, and back them up with standard tools.

In addition, the app keeps a small SQLite database alongside the files to track metadata (including edits, albums, and relationships like Live Photos), which allows accurate restores and verification while still giving you transparent, plain-files access to your media.