But what if you do want to use Photo Stream and want to download and store those photos locally in your PC or Mac.As I mentioned above, only the latest 1000 photos will be stored in the device’s Photo Stream (this is now called Recently Added in iOS 8 by the way). If you add more photos exceeding this limit, older photos will be deleted. But if you download them to your PC or Mac you won’t. Photos will now attempt to download all the media stored in your iCloud Photo Library to the external drive. You can interrupt the process by quitting Photos and ejecting the drive.
There is no option to select All Photos on iCloud, which makes it difficult to select All Photos at once in iCloud. However, it is possible to download All Photos from iCloud to Mac using two different methods as provided below.
Download ALL Photos from iCloud to PC
While iCloud Photos is considered to be a safe and secure place to store your memories, it is a good idea to download All your Photos from iCloud to Mac as a precautionary measure.
Just like having an insurance policy, an additional backup of all your Photos on Mac will provide you with peace of mind that you do have a backup, in case something happens to your iCloud Account.
Download Photos From Mac Photos
Another common reason for downloading photos from iCloud is to Free Up iCloud Storage Space by deleting iCloud Photos after downloading them to Mac.
So, let us go ahead and take a look at the steps to select All Photos on iCloud and download them to your computer.
1. Download All Photos from iCloud to Mac Using Safari
If you want to download Photos directly from icloud.com, you can follow the steps below to download All Photos from iCloud to Mac.
1. Open the Safari browser on your Mac and go to icloud.com
2. Sign-in to your iCloud Account by entering your Apple ID and Password.
3. After you are signed-in to iCloud, click on the Photos Icon.
4. In iCloud Photos, click on the Photos Tab and press Command+A to select all Photos on iCloud.
Note: If Command+A is not working, make sure iCloud Photos is enabled on your iPhone.
5. After selecting All Photos, click on the Download icon (See image in step 4 above) to start the process of downloading All the selected Photos to your Mac.
Note: At the time of writing, iCloud download limit stands at 1,000 Photos. This means that you can only download up to 999 photos at a time from iCloud to Mac.
If you have more than 1,000 photos to download, try to select and download 500 Photos at a time.
To select 500 Photos, click on the First Photo > Scroll down 50 rows > Hold down the Shift key on the keyboard of your Mac and click on the Last Photo in 50th row.
2. Download All Photos from iCloud to Mac Using Photos App
The easiest way to select and download Photos from iCloud to Mac is by using the Photos App on Mac. Also, this method has no limit on the number of Photos being downloaded.
1. Open the Photos App on your Mac and wait for All Photos to Load.
2. Once All the Photos are loaded, switch to ‘All Photos’ view by clicking on the All Photos tab.
3. Next, press Command+A Keys on the keyboard of your Mac to select all the Photos on iCloud.
Download Photos From Photo Stream To Mac Photoshop
4. After selecting All Photos, simply drag the highlighted Photos to Desktop or a Folder on your Mac
The time to Download Photos from iCloud to Mac will depend on the number of Photos in your iCloud Account and the speed of your internet connection.
To download photos from My Photo Strean to Mac, you need to install the latest version of iCloud on your Mac. The photos in My Photo Stream are stored in the path set in the iCloud Photos location on Windows PC. But, the Mac version doesn't have an option to configure the path where photos are stored. If you are looking for a step by step process to download photos from My Photo Stream to Mac, read below.
Following are the steps to Download Photos from My Photo Stream to Mac:
- Make sure that you have the latest version of iCloud installed on your Mac.
- Open 'iCloud' on your Mac.
- Check mark the 'Photos' and click 'Options...' button.
- Select 'My Photo Stream' option.
- Click 'Ok' button.
- Go to 'Preferences' and open 'iCloud' tab.
- Turn ON 'My Photo Stream' and 'Automatic Import' options.
- You will see the 'iCloud' folder under the 'Shared' section.
- Open 'iCloud' folder, you will see 'My Photo Stream' and 'Shared Album' folders.
- Once you open this folder, your Photos should start to be downloaded automatically.
- This way you can download photos from My Photo Stream to Mac.