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Back up iCloud original photos to an external hard drive

I need a second back up of my original photos (RAW) stored in iCloud. I want to back them up to an external drive. Seems I can't do it. ICloud won't even download my originals to my Mac so I could back up from there. Any ideas?

Posted on May 16, 2022 6:54 AM

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Posted on May 16, 2022 7:32 AM

Are you trying to download from www.icloud.com?

To download the RAW select the photos, then hover the pointer below the download arrow to reveal the barely visibly, tiny down arrow for the hidden "more download options". Make sure, that "Original" is selected, when you download the photos.


3 replies

May 16, 2022 7:11 AM in response to TheSimham

Thanks so much.


Actually, I don't have enough space on my Mac to store all of my originals locally so was trying avoid that and to find a way to download (even manually) to an external drive. Then I could work with them easily in Lightroom.


A second way I tried was to download the originals to my Mac in small batches but iCloud it will only bring down the .jpg files and not the RAW.


Susan

Back up iCloud original photos to an external hard drive

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