How do I transfer mass amount of photos from iCloud to hard drive?

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Level 1

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How do I transfer mass amount of photos from iCloud to hard drive?

I have over 6000 photos that I've been collection on my iPhone SE for the last 4 years or so and I'm now using iCloud to store what will not fit on my internal iPhone memory. I want to quit paying for the iCloud subscription every month and just transfer all of my iCloud photos to my laptop hard drive. I've logged onto the iCloud.com website and found where I can transfer them to my computer. The only problem is that I don't know how to select everything in my iCloud and transfer at one time. I don't want to spend days selecting each photo one at a time to transfer it. Anyone have a solutions to my problem? I don't want to delete my photos either. Thanks in advance!

iPhone SE, iOS 13

Posted on Sep 30, 2020 11:30 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

MrHoffman

Community+ 2024

Level 10

124,669 points

Oct 9, 2020 7:43 PM in response to Jerracus

Apple has available information on how to archive the contents of iCloud:

Archive or make copies of the information you store in iCloud - Apple Support

here’s the sequence for downgrading iCloud storage:

Downgrade or cancel your iCloud storage plan - Apple Support

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Answer 2

tygb

Level 9

64,690 points

Oct 9, 2020 8:31 PM in response to Jerracus

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 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 3

Jerracus Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 1, 2020 1:42 PM in response to zinacef

Thank you for sharing the video! I did get as far as that support video showed. It didn’t address my problem of selecting 100’s to thousands of photos at once.

If you happen to know how to do that I would appreciate the knowledge! Thanks for the reply!

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Answer 4

Jerracus Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 9, 2020 3:55 PM in response to tygb

Thank you for sending me that link. I’ve been trying to go through a different ways inside of the article but with increasing frustration. I’ve yet to find something on the article that works for me.

I understand Apple wanting my money and my monthly subscription but it shouldn’t be this difficult to get all my photos off of my iCloud so I can just cancel that subscription.

I just want my photos onto my hard drive.

I’m not a tech wizard but I grew up with computers and to have something become this difficult and have this much frustration does not look good for me continuing with Apple products...

apologies for the rant but I’ve been trying to do something like this on and off for over a year.

extremely non-user-friendly

I want to give up but I want my photos...

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