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How can I download my entire iCloud photo library?

My wife somehow ended up with a full iCloud photo library, and that is the only copy of those photos. I want to download these photos to my computer so I can delete all of the photos off of her iCloud as we use iCloud as a backup for everything BUT our photos. We have family sharing set up with my account as primary, but I still can't figure out how to download her iCloud library.

Help...I'm going balder by the moment trying to figure

1) There are about 1300 photos in my wife's photo stream/iCloud library (those are the same thing basically,

No, My Photo stream and iCloud Photo Library are different features of iCloud.

• My Photo Stream is a buffer in iCloud for transferring photos between devices, it is not a permanent storage. Newly added photos will stay in My Photo Stream for a limited time to be downloaded. After a month they may be replaced automatically by newer photos. Use this only to transfer photos, not as a cloud storage.
• iCloud Photo Library is a central storage of your Photos Library, and all changes to this library will be updated across all devices that are using iCloud Photo Library. This library is meant to be used to store your photos in a central location.

How long will it take for the photos to "sync back" to the Photos library on my iMac? I tried doing this, and nothing happened for about 5 minutes...maybe I was just being impatient!

It will take much longer than you like.  It is hard to estimate, but usually the download takes as long as the upload. It will depend on the size of your library and your network.  For my library of 40000 photos it took three days using a wired Ethernet connection.

2) In order for this to work, I have to log my iMac into my wife's iCloud account in system preferences, correct?

My advice will only work, if it is indeed  an iCloud Photo Library, and you should do it from an account, where your wife is signed in with her iCloud AppleID.

Let your wife create a new, empty Photos library on an external drive.  The file system of that drive needs to be MacOS Extended (Journaled). Then enable that Photos Library as the System Photos Library in the Photos Preferences > iCloud.  Also enable "Download Originals to this Mac".  Then wait for the photos to sync back to the library.

See this Help page:  https://help.apple.com/photos/mac/1.0/?lang=en

Stop using iCloud Photo Library

 

Important: If you decide to turn off iCloud Photo Library, first be sure to select “Download Originals to this Mac” in the iCloud pane of Photos preferences, so all your original photos can be downloaded from iCloud to your Mac. Be sure to allow time for your originals to download before turning off iCloud Photo Library completely.

• Choose Photos > Preferences, then click iCloud.
• 
• Deselect the iCloud Photo Library checkbox to turn it off.

After you turn off iCloud Photo Library, the Photos app on your Mac can’t access your iCloud library, and any edits you make to photos on your Mac won’t appear on your other devices. Your library remains in iCloud and available to other devices that use iCloud Photo Library. To turn off iCloud Photo Library on all your devices, open the iCloud pane of System Preferences, click the Manage button, then click Photo Library. Click “Disable and delete.” Your photos and videos will be deleted from iCloud Photo Library in 30 days, unless you click Undo Delete before that time.

Hey leonie...

Okay, a couple follow up questions:

1) There are about 1300 photos in my wife's photo stream/iCloud library (those are the same thing basically, correct?). How long will it take for the photos to "sync back" to the Photos library on my iMac? I tried doing this, and nothing happened for about 5 minutes...maybe I was just being impatient!

2) In order for this to work, I have to log my iMac into my wife's iCloud account in system preferences, correct?

Thank you!

1. No, they are not the same thing

2. Yes

And.

we use iCloud as a backup for everything BUT our photos

3. iCloud is not a backup system, if you think it is you will be very disappointed when you find out the hard way.

To clarify....we use it as a "backup" (maybe not the best term, but good enough for me...) for all of our iCloud related items: Notes, calendar, contacts, safari bookmarks....etc.

And you didn't answer the main question from #1.

And as I said before, it's not a backup, so until I know what you think a backup is I can't advise further.

1300 photos will take whatever your internet connection provides (also dependent on the file size of each picture), think hours, possibly even days, not minutes.

1) There are about 1300 photos in my wife's photo stream/iCloud library (those are the same thing basically,

No, My Photo stream and iCloud Photo Library are different features of iCloud.

• My Photo Stream is a buffer in iCloud for transferring photos between devices, it is not a permanent storage. Newly added photos will stay in My Photo Stream for a limited time to be downloaded. After a month they may be replaced automatically by newer photos. Use this only to transfer photos, not as a cloud storage.
• iCloud Photo Library is a central storage of your Photos Library, and all changes to this library will be updated across all devices that are using iCloud Photo Library. This library is meant to be used to store your photos in a central location.

How long will it take for the photos to "sync back" to the Photos library on my iMac? I tried doing this, and nothing happened for about 5 minutes...maybe I was just being impatient!

It will take much longer than you like.  It is hard to estimate, but usually the download takes as long as the upload. It will depend on the size of your library and your network.  For my library of 40000 photos it took three days using a wired Ethernet connection.

2) In order for this to work, I have to log my iMac into my wife's iCloud account in system preferences, correct?

My advice will only work, if it is indeed  an iCloud Photo Library, and you should do it from an account, where your wife is signed in with her iCloud AppleID.

As I said before, we use it for things like Notes, calendar, etc. As iCloud was intended to be used...and all that is working fine for us with the family share stuff. "Backup" probably isn't the right term...all I'm trying to get at is I don't want to use iCloud for our photos because it eats up all the space, and I don't want to purchase any more data from Apple.

Thanks for the info regarding everything else though!

Thank you leone!!

That's exactly what I needed.

all I'm trying to get at is I don't want to use iCloud for our photos because it eats up all the space, and I don't want to purchase any more data from Apple.

My Photo Stream and Shared Albums do not count against your free 5GB iCloud Storage, but iCloud Photo Library does.

That is why Apple is imposing limits on the amount of photos in My Photo Stream and Shared albums.

See this page:   iCloud: My Photo Stream and iCloud Photo Sharing limits

My Photo Stream and Shared Albums do not count against your free 5GB iCloud Storage, but iCloud Photo Library does.

That is why Apple is imposing limits on the amount of photos in My Photo Stream and Shared albums.

See this page:   iCloud: My Photo Stream and iCloud Photo Sharing limits

Right...the mistake that caused this whole thing is that she had iCloud photo library turned on, and photo stream turned off on her iPhone and I didn't catch it until her 5GB was full from photos.

Leonie....

Below is a screenshot of the window that I have had on my screen now for at least an hour and a half.

I started with an empty "Photos" library on my iMac (so nothing to upload). Everything looks to be checked correctly, but the status is stuck at "Updating". Nothing has begun to download yet. Is this normal and I'm just being impatient, or is something screwy??

Update...

It's working. I had to restart the computer and re-log into the iCloud account. Once that was done, it started working quickly.

Thanks everyone for the help!

Add some dummy photo to the Photos Library, so it has something to upload.

Have a look at the "General" tab of the Photos Preferences.  Is the path to the library correct in that panel?

Then check the status line at the bottom of the main Photos application window w hen you select the "Moments" view.  Does this status line show "Uploading" or "Updated just now"?

Does the System Preferences > iCloud panel show the correct AppleID?

Help to the person saying they downloaded 40000 photos! i have 43 thousand photos and videos on my iCloud... how do i get them to my 'g drive thunderbolt'.... do i have to download them to the computer then the drive or can i download them from iCloud straight to the drive? and when you say you used a wired ethernet connection, you mean a cord connecting from the internet box to the computer? thanks so much!!

最後更新：2017-09-10 15:05:02

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