If you have iCloud Photo Library activated, every photo you take with your iPhone or iPad, and every image you lot upload to Photos on your Mac from a photographic camera, will announced on all your devices. This may audio appealing but yous may somewhen come to the conclusion that you lot aren't prepared to pay for the iCloud storage required, or peradventure you are getting a new phone that isn't an iPhone (!)

There are a few reasons why yous might want to download photos from iCloud:

  • You may want to remove photos from your iPhone but when you try to delete them it says they will exist removed from iCloud and all your devices and yous don't desire to do that!
  • Yous might want to download copies of your iCloud photos to your Mac then that you can back them up - peradventure considering you demand to reclaim some of the space currently given to your Photo library past archiving former images.
  • Perhaps y'all want to employ a total-resolution version of a photo in a presentation, or to transport to a friend or family unit member. In order for your photos not to take upwards gigabytes of infinite on your devices, Apple tree uploads a full-res version to iCloud while showing a low-res version of on your device. In other words, you may exist able to view your photos on your Mac, just if yous wanted a high-resolution version you might need to download information technology from iCloud.
  • You lot may want to grab a photo from your iCloud Photo Library just you aren't on your Mac. In fact, you could even be on a PC.
  • You lot want to download total resolution versions of your photos for access when offline.
  • You want to exercise a full back up of your Photo library (begetting in mind that if yous stop using iCloud Photo Library, or paying for iCloud storage, you will want to download your photos first).

In this article we testify how to download the images stored in Apple tree's iCloud to your Mac, whether you want to grab private or selected photos, make a backup of photos and then yous can delete them from your iPhone, or download the whole lot in 1 become then that you tin can dorsum them up. (We have a full tutorial on backing up your iPhone Photograph Library here.)

We'll walk through a variety of ways to get your iCloud photos onto your Mac beneath.

How to download iCloud photos to your Mac using Photos

If you lot only want to make certain that you have a full-res copy of a photo on your Mac before deleting information technology from your iPhone, you lot can download the photograph onto your Mac.

These steps assume you are using iCloud Photograph Library and that you lot have information technology fix in Photos on your Mac.

To check, go to: Photos > Preferences > iCloud. At that place should exist a tick in the box beside iCloud Photo Library.

If you lot have iCloud Photo Library turned on, all your photos taken on your iPhone (and iPad) will appear in Photos on your Mac.

  1. Detect the photo (or photos) you want to relieve onto your Mac.
  2. Click on the photo(s) and drag it to your desktop (or into a binder somewhere else on your Mac).

At present that y'all have a backup of the photograph y'all can delete the original(s) from iCloud.

How to download iCloud photos to Mac: Photos app

How to download private photos from iCloud.com

You lot tin download images from your iCloud on to any Mac or PC, just by logging into your iCloud in a web browser. Here's how:

  1. Get to iCloud.com on a Mac browser and log in with your usual Apple ID and countersign. You'll see the usual array of iCloud apps, including Postal service, Contacts, Calendar and so on.
  2. Click on Photos to see all the images that are saved in iCloud.

    How to download photos from iCloud to Mac: iCloud.com

  3. Scan to the photo you want to download, and either click (to highlight) or double-click (to open it).How to download photos from iCloud to Mac
  4. Either way, at the elevation-right you'll run across various icons: from left to right, these signify favourite, add to anthology, share, download and delete. Click the download icon (the cloud with a downwardly arrow).
  5. Cheque your downloads folder: the selected image volition have appeared there.

How to download photos from iCloud to Mac: Downloads folder

How to download all your iCloud photos to your Mac

As we said above, one of the benefits of using iCloud Photo Library is that it makes information technology possible to view all your photos on all of your devices. Obviously, it wouldn't exist ideal if this meant that you needed a few hundred gigabytes of space available on all your devices. Luckily, you don't need a lot of space to benefit from iCloud Photo Library considering you can prepare it to show low-res versions of your photos while keeping the full-res version safety in iCloud.

However, if yous take a lot of storage available on your Mac yous might like to have full-res versions of your iCloud photos stored in Photos where they can be backed up for your own peace of mind. In fact, you don't even need a lot of storage on your Mac if yous movement your Photo library to a carve up storage device (we explain how to move your Photo Library to an external hard drive here.)

  1. Open Photos on your Mac.
  2. Click on Photos > Preferences.
  3. Check the box beside Download Originals To This Mac.

Now every fourth dimension you open Photos on your Mac the full-res versions of photos you lot have taken volition be downloaded on to your Mac.

Note that it's likewise possible to select all your photos on iCloud and manage or delete them in the usual way.