Download iCloud Photos to PC/Mac from iCloud.com. It is a quite easy and convenient way to log in.
iCloud Photo Library on your iPhone/iPad or Mac can automatically upload and store the entire library in iCloud to aces photos and videos from all your devices. However, as we all know, there is only 5GB free for iCloud at the very beginning and the photo library can quickly eat up space. Therefore, many users will choose to transfer photos from iCloud to external hard drive to free up iCloud space. Today, on this page, we will show you how to transfer photos from iCloud to external hard drive on Windows PC and Mac. Meanwhile, at the end of this page, we also recommend EaseUS MobiMover Free to help you transfer photos from PC or Mac to your iPhone if you have carelessly deleted some valuable images on your iPhone and won't get them back.
How to download photos from iCloud to PC and Mac
Transfer photos from iCloud to PC or Mac is easy by following tips below. Except for pictures downloading, you also can delete all iCloud photos if you don’t need them anymore instead of saving them to another place.
1. Open a browser on your PC or Safari on Mac, and go to www.icloud.com.
2. Log into your Apple ID account username & password and access the main interface like below.
3. Click on Photos in the main interface. Then, choose All Photos album.
4. Press Ctrl on your PC or Command on Mac and choose multiple or total photos in iCloud.
5. Go to the right upper corner and click the Download button in cloud shape and click Download to save the photos on your Windows PC or Mac.
How to transfer photos from PC/Mac to external hard drive
After you have downloaded the photos from iCloud on your Windows PC or Mac, you can start to transfer them to your external hard drive.
1. Plug in your external hard drive to your computer via a USB cable.
2. Find the photo files saved from iCloud and copy them to your external hard drive with ease.
How to transfer photos from Mac/PC to iPhone
If you have deleted some important photos from your iPhone and want them back. You can choose to use EaseUS MobiMover Free to help you transfer files from PC/Mac to iPhone, including photos, music, contacts, videos, playlists, ringtones, and books. Besides, MobiMover Free also allows you to transfer photos from iPhone to PC/Mac at one lick and sync data between two iOS devices without any intermediate operations.
Download and install EaseUS MobiMover Free on your computer by clicking the download button below, then follow the steps to copy photos from computer to iPhone within minutes.
Step 1. Connect your iPhone to your Mac or PC, run EaseUS MobiMover, and choose 'PC to iDevice'. Then, click the 'Select Files' to continue.
Step 2. On this interface, you can select unlimited photos to transfer. Then, click 'Open' to move to the next step.
Step 3. Check the genres you have selected. If the folders/files you selected cover other supported categories, you can transfer them all together with photos from the computer to your iPhone.
iCloud is a great place to store photos as it means you can access them on all of your devices, from anywhere in the world. But downloading photos to your Mac has its benefits too.
First of all, Mac has greater disk space than other iOS devices and dwarfs the 5GB of free storage offered by iCloud. You can also easily connect an external hard drive for extra storage whenever you need it. As it's recommended to backup your photos in more than one place, keeping them on your Mac makes sense. That way, you’ll be able to access them offline.
Secondly, Mac is the best platform from which to organize, manage, and edit your photos. Apps such as Spotlight and iMovie and third-party tools like Adobe Photoshop give you control over your images that no other device can offer.
But whatever your reasons, you’ve come here to find out how to get pictures from iCloud so let’s get into showing you how to do exactly that.
First, make sure your Mac has enough disk space
If you plan on downloading all of your iCloud photos to your Mac you could be looking at quite a few gigabytes, particularly so if you’re on one of the paid iCloud storage plans. So before you download, you need to check that you have enough space on your disk.
How to check your available hard drive space
Download Icloud Photo Library To Pc
On macOS 10.7 or later:
- Select About This Mac from the Apple menu.
- Click More Info, then click Storage.
How To Download All Photos From Icloud
On macOS 10.6 or earlier:
- Open a Finder window.
- Select your hard drive from the sidebar.
- Go to the File menu and click Get Info.
If available space is looking limited, you’ll need to remove some of the things you don’t need to make room for the incoming photos.
How to clean up your startup disk
If you’re running macOS Sierra or higher, Mac has a built-in Optimize Storage feature that stops your hard drive becoming full by moving files over to the cloud. The problem is, it moves them to iCloud which might well be already full with photos. So it’s not ideal.
Fortunately, you don’t have to rely on Optimize Storage. You can go ahead and free up space yourself by cleaning up cache files, getting rid of localization files, removing old iOS and iTunes backups, and emptying out the Trash. Be warned, though, not all of these methods are quick and straightforward.
If you like to know how to free up disk space manually, check out our article on “What is Startup Disk Full on Mac OS?”
Right now, though, we’re just going to show you the easy way to get rid of old files and free up space. This way involves CleanMyMac X. This utility tool scans your entire system for junk files and removes them in minutes to free up gigabytes of space.
You can download CleanMyMac X for free here. Do it now.
...Done it? Great! Here’s how to perform a Smart Cleanup to rid your system of unneeded files in a few clicks.
- Launch CleanMyMac X.
- Click on Smart Cleanup from the sidebar.
- Hit Scan and wait while CleanMyMac scans your system for junk files that can be safely removed.
- Hit Run and enjoy a whole lot more disk space.
How to download individual photos from iCloud
Now that you’ve made room for your photos, let’s look at how to download from iCloud to Mac. If you want to pick and choose which photos to save to your computer, you’ll need to download images individually.
Here’s how it’s done:
- Open a browser and go to iCloud.com, then log in with your Apple ID.
- Click on Photos.
- Click on any photo that you want to download. When it loads, click the download icon in the top right corner of the screen.
- Repeat with every photo that you want to download.
How To Select All In Icloud
Any photo that you download will be sent to your Downloads folder unless you’ve specified otherwise.
How To Download Multiple Photos From Icloud
How to download all photos from iCloud
How To Download Photos From Icloud To Mac 2019
Downloading individual photos is quick and easy. Unfortunately, when clicking on the download icon, there is no “download all” option. That’s because no such button exists. We wish it existed and we hope that Apple will include it in future versions of iCloud, but for now, we have to make do with a workaround.
Because Apple also decided to remove the ability to Shift+click in iCloud.com, you'll need to download files in bulk from the Photos app on your Mac.
Here’s how:
- Open Photos.
- When all of your images load, use Command+A to select them all.
- Open up the folder where you want to save the images.
- Drag the highlighted images into the folder. A green + icon and red number showing how many photos are about to be saved to your Mac will show.
How To Download Photos From Icloud To Macbook
That’s it, job done!
You should make a regular habit of downloading images from your iCloud account to your Mac or external hard drive as an additional method of backup. It’s easy to do and ensures you can access your precious photos even if you have no internet connection. Before downloading in bulk, make sure to check how much disk space you have available and use CleanMyMac X to quickly free up a few gigabytes.