Can I Move iCloud Photos to External Hard Drive?
iCloud Photos is used to manage photos and videos that you keep in iCloud. All of your photos and videos will be put into different units as Years, Months, Days, and All Photos according to their dates. You can browse every photo and video on any device equipped with iCloud Photos. Besides, if you make some changes to the photos or videos on one of your devices, the changes can be reflected in those content on other devices, either.
As you can see, iCloud definitely can bring many conveniences to our daily life. But why there are many people want to know how to move iCloud Photos to external hard drive? The post will give 3 probable reasons below.
- Security: Because iCloud Photos saves photos on cloud, if the users’ iCloud Photos accounts are attacked, the photos might be deleted, modified, or spread by others without permission. This situation will bring great loss. However, if you move those photos to an external hard drive as a backup, your loss will be reduced.
- Storage: As a new iCloud Photos user, you can get 5GB of free storage. But this 5GB serves not only for the photos but all the content saved on iCloud. Therefore, 5GB may be inadequate for you. In this regard, you can upgrade to iCloud+ to get more storage. The basic iCloud+ plan costs $0.99 for 50GB and there are more plans with higher prices and larger storage. But if you keep some photos on an external hard drive, you can save this money.
- Network: As a cloud service, iCloud Photos can be used only when your devices join into the network. You might be impatient if you want to use the photos urgently, but can't download photos from iCloud since there is no network. However, photos on the hard drive can be used offline. So, moving photos from iCloud Photos to a hard drive will help you easily access your photos.
Now you know why some users transfer photos from iCloud Photos to the external HDD. The answer to the question in the title is yes and the remaining parts will give you 5 easy ways to move iCloud Photos to an external hard drive.
How to Move iCloud Photos to External Hard Drive on Mac
If you are a Mac user, you can try this method without entering the iCloud website.
Step 1: Open the Photos app on your Mac and select the photos that you want to move. Before following the steps, you have to make sure that iCloud Photos is enabled on all devices.
Step 2: Click File in the upper-left menu bar and choose Export.
Step 3: Look through the export settings to see if there is anything you’d like to change and click Export.
Step 4: Select your hard drive as the export destination and the photos will be exported to the external hard drive.
How to Move iCloud Photos to External Hard Drive on Windows PC
This method is especially serving for Windows users and you have to download iCloud for Windows at the beginning.
Step 1: Download iCloud for Windows in Microsoft Store and log in to your iCloud account.
Step 2: Tick the box next to Photos and open Options in the same line.
Step 3: Choose iCloud Photos Library and Download new photos and videos to my PC. Then click Done and Apply.
Step 4: Turn to File Explorer and find iCloud Photos. Then open the Downloads folder and copy the selected photos. Finally, paste the photos to the external hard drive.
Bonus Tip: Download / Transfer All iCloud Photos to External Hard Drive
You may come up with a question "How do I download more than 1000 photos from iCloud" since iCloud only allows users to download 1000 photos at once. This time you can request a copy of your Apple ID data. Follow these steps:
Step 1: Enter privacy. apple. com and log in to your account.
Step 2: Click "Continue" in the Apple ID & Privacy interface and select "Get Started" under "Get a copy of your data".
Step 3: Tick the box behind iCloud Photos and click the "Continue" button at the bottom of this page.
Step 4: Choose the maximum photo size you want to download and tap "Complete request".
Step 5: Transfer these downloaded photos to your hard drive by copying and pasting.
How to Move iCloud Photos to External Hard Drive on Mac & PC [2 Methods]
This section will give you 2 wonderful solutions on how to move photos from iCloud to external hard drive, compatible with both Apple Mac and Windows PC.
Way 1: Download iCloud Photos to External Hard Drive via iCloud.com
If you do not want to download the iCloud for Windows app, there is another way to download photos from iCloud Photos to an external hard drive on your PC. You can take advantage of the iCloud website. On it, you can view all your files in iCloud Photos, iCloud Drive, Contacts, Mail, etc. Therefore, you can use this way to move iCloud Drive to external hard drive.
Step 1: Enter iCloud.com and log in to your account.
Step 2: Open Photos in the interface and select the photos that you want to move.
Step 3: Click the download icon (a cloud with a downward arrow) in the upper-right menu bar to download photos to your external hard drive if you have changed the download destination in the browser settings before. If you don’t change it, the photos will be downloaded to the default local position and you have to drag the photos from the local position and drop them into your external hard drive.
Method 2: Transfer iCloud Photos to External Hard Drive via MultCloud
MultCloud is a professional cloud-management service where you can gather all your cloud files together and manage them only on one platform. Except for adding different cloud storage services, you can also add different accounts of one cloud to MultCloud for free. Therefore, if you have 2 iCloud Photos accounts, you can add both of them to MultCloud and download photos from them without switching the login accounts.
The specific steps of how to download iCloud Photos to external hard drive are shown below.
Step 1: Enter MultCloud and click the button “Sign up Free” to create a new MultCloud account.
Step 2: Click “Add Cloud” in the left sidebar and the iCloud Photos icon in the right part. Then, you should log in to your iCloud Photos account. Here you would enter the verification code to go through two-factor authentication.
Step 3: Open iCloud Photos and select the photos you are willing to move. Then click “Download” in the upper taskbar. Your photos will be moved to the external hard drive if you change the download destination to your HDD before on MultCloud.
Further Reading: How Do I Move Photos from iCloud to Drive?
Except for iCloud Photos, there are other popular cloud storage services like Google Drive. If you already paid for the Google Drive plan, you can choose to store photos on Google Drive instead of iCloud. MultCloud has a function, Cloud Transfer, which can directly transfer files from one cloud to another without manually downloading and uploading. In this way, you can save much time in manual operations and save local space. Or, if you have another preferred cloud destination, you can also use Cloud Transfer to automate the photo migration process.
Step 1: Add Google Drive to MultCloud with the same operations as adding iCloud Photos.
Step 2: Click "Cloud Transfer" in the left sidebar and choose iCloud Photos and Google Drive in the FROM/TO boxes. Finally, tap on the "Transfer Now" button to initiate the process.
Notes:
- Cloud Transfer offers you 2 helpful features - Filter and Schedule. "Filter" can select the files you want to transfer or ignore by file extensions. And "Schedule" is for timing the transfer task to run at your preferred time and making the task run regularly.
- MultCloud uses data traffic to transfer files and it offers 5 GB of free traffic every month. However, you can get more traffic from 100GB/month to unlimited by upgrading to a paid plan.
Conclusion
This post introduces 5 easy solutions on how to move iCloud Photos to external hard drive for you. Whether you want to transfer photos on your Mac or Windows PC, you can find a specific way here. Or, you can use the 2 more compatible ways which can be used on Mac and PC.
Additionally, MultCloud can do more things besides downloading and backing up. Transferring and syncing photos from one cloud to another cloud can be also easily realized on it. If you are interested in syncing iCloud Photos to Google Photos, just try it now!
MultCloud Supports Clouds
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Google Drive
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Google Workspace
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OneDrive
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OneDrive for Business
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SharePoint
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Dropbox
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Dropbox Business
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MEGA
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Google Photos
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iCloud Photos
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FTP
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box
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box for Business
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pCloud
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Baidu
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Flickr
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HiDrive
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Yandex
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NAS
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WebDAV
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MediaFire
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iCloud Drive
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WEB.DE
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Evernote
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Amazon S3
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Wasabi
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ownCloud
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MySQL
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Egnyte
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Putio
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ADrive
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SugarSync
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Backblaze
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CloudMe
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MyDrive
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Cubby