Three part answer.
Go to iCloud.com and login with your Apple ID and password. Go to “Photos” section. Choose the “All Photos” album. Scroll down to the bottom of the All Photos album and click the “ Select Photos ” button on the top of the iCloud Photos bar. Hold down the Shift key and click on the very last picture in the album. 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. How to download all your photos & videos on Mac. The reason why this is important is because iCloud automatically download photos to a USB Drive or another location and less it’s set as the default system photo library so that’s why we have to do that. In iCloud Photos, click on the Photos Tab and press Command + A to select all iCloud Photos and click on the Download icon to start the process of downloading All iCloud Photos to Mac. Note: If Command+A is not working, make sure iCloud Photos is enabled on your iPhone. Download More Than 1,000 iCloud Photos to Mac.
1. Open Photos, go to Photos/Preferences/iCloud and set up syncing. Then go to System Preferences/iCloud, sign in, and check Photos syncing. Once all the Photos have synced to your computer, quit Photos. You should now have a complete compilation of your photos (like a Master Library). Reopen Photos with the option/alt key held down and create a new system Library. You can now delete photos from your devices/computer while maintaining a master copy on the computer. Added photos can be exported from the new Library and imported into the Master Library. Turn off iCloud syncing when reverting to the Master Library.
Download Photos For Mac
2. One option would be to open Photos with the option/alt key held down and create a new system Library on the external. Once everything is downloaded, reopen Photos with the option/alt key held down, and switch back to the Library on your internal drive to delete photos. Switch as required/desired.
3. One option to free up space would be to move your Photos Library to an external hard drive. Then quit/reopen Photos with the option/alt key held down and make the external hard drive file the system Library. Once you are sure all your photos are there, you can delete the Library from the internal drive if desired. Once you do this, the external hard drive will need to be attached to access/sync your photos.
Article if for iPhoto, but the basics are the same.
How To Download All Pictures From Icloud To Mac Computer
Nov 10, 2018 1:03 PM