If you configure a password for your backup it will backup more (confidential) data than if you don't encrypt your local backup.
Only need to go to this page to do the request https://privacy.apple.com/
⟩ cat ~/bin/icloud_download
#!/bin/bash
mkdir "$(pwd)"/{photos,cookies} 2> /dev/null
if [[ -z "${ICLOUD_USERNAME}" ]]; then
echo "need env ICLOUD_USERNAME"
exit 1
fi
if [[ -z "${ICLOUD_PASSWORD}" ]]; then
echo "need env ICLOUD_PASSWORD"
exit 1
fi
podman container run -it --rm --name icloud \
-v $(pwd)/photos:/data \
-v $(pwd)/cookies:/cookies \
-e TZ=America/Boise \
icloudpd/icloudpd:latest \
icloudpd --directory /data \
--cookie-directory /cookies \
--folder-structure {:%Y/%Y-%m-%d} \
--username "${ICLOUD_USERNAME}" \
--password "${ICLOUD_PASSWORD}" \
--size originalPassing your raw iCloud creds into the unverified latest tag is fine until it’s not. Better to pin to a specific tag or hash.
I'm "protected" by the fact Podman doesn't automatically update the latest image even when using the latest tag.
I was more showing how simple icloudpd is to use.
It seems like an obvious improvement for Time Machine to support full backups while using optimized storage on the primary system.
I migrated to Linux + Pika Backup. For photos I use Ente Photos with their managed cloud storage plus a continuous export to my NAS.
Ente is surprisingly well integrated with iOS, you really don’t need to use Apple’s solution. It automatically backs up photos I take in the background.
10 minutes is great, and my changes wouldn’t seem as extensive as yours. I need to dig deeper.
I have hit this too many times.
I haven't looked into the implementation details, but Photos lets you adjust the section of the video that is played back in slow motion. I thought if you share a slow-mo video, it gets re-encoded to bake this in (i.e., one second at 240fps gets exported as four seconds at 60fps).
Time Machine's job is to back up my data, it's not strictly to make a 1:1 copy of local storage. It should back up my cloud data too.
I’ve found unreasonable value in being able to search through hundreds of thousands of photos from my phone, so I went all-in on Photos.app. Though one enabling factor is that my photography workflow has drastic simplified in recent years to doing very little post (except for astrophotography, which I try and keep wip out of Photos.app anyway).
For edits, I don't care too much about just baking them in since it's unlikely I'm going back to old photos and want to undo the crop.
I'm always surprised what kind of antifeatures people in Apple land are willing to accept and still use those things...
This is the correct - and obvious - response to something like this.
Unfortunately, I believe that rclone has no support for iCloud photos at this time.
https://github.com/rcarmo/PhotosExport
...when you try to export files using the (restricted) APIs we get, it automatically triggers a download.
I’ve wrapped it in some short scripts which notifies on auth failure and it’s an easy process to run the auth script. But there’s no way to avoid the bi-monthly inconvenience I don’t think.
[1]: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/parachute-backup/id6748614170?...
On a related question, is there a download solution that does work with ADP? I’m looking to mitigate any potential account lockout issues for family members (and, no, they will not switch out of the ecosystem).
The only scripted solution I can think of that works with ADP is osxphotos[^1], but that also uses PhotoKit, and requires the user to be signed in.
Personally I use PhotoSync [^2] to backup our photos from phones to a NAS. It works reliably, and supports exporting unmodified originals as well as edited versions, and XMP/AAE metadata alongside it.
The desktop version works reliably, if you can get macOS to keep shares mounted for long enough, and mount them on request. The scheduler is also kinda wonky.
The iOS version has so far never finished an incremental backup overnight of our ~1TB individual libraries. It handles resume/suspend well, but for some reason, while it exports unmodified originals, it doesn't include AAE files, which the desktop version does.
PhotoSync does everything right, with the exception of trying to keep state of what has been exported, which makes little sense as it doesn't support restoring photos.
Going forward, you’d want to set up some other way to sync photos you take from your phone to your other devices. I can personally recommend Synology Photos for simplicity[1], or Immich[2] for an open-source (and in my opinion, slightly better) alternative you can run on any hardware, if you’d like to set up an always-on NAS. These are “Apple Photos” or “Google Photos” equivalents that you host yourself.
Alternatively, something like Syncthing[3] is a dead-simple way to sync your photos to various other devices as and when they are online, if you’d prefer to manage your photos in an ordinary file manager.
I’d be remiss not to mention that, for any solution where you move off the cloud to a central storage location of your own, you really must make backups to keep your photos safe. The 3-2-1 rule is a standard recommendation.
I have a script to scan files from my camera and add a compressed copy to a folder. This folder was supposed to work with the iCloud for windows (10) program, but one day it just stopped working.
For context, try tapping 'optimize photos' in iPhone storage settings and then figure out how to turn off the feature without using Google. Not only is the toggle nearly impossible to find, but it's also hidden from being searchable
Same place it’s always been. In Settings -> App -> Photos, toggle Download and Keep Originals. Same place it is for macOS as well. It’s not that magical. Search for “photos icloud” and you’ll be led to the setting for it.
I’m not ready to pay $60/month, but I do like iCloud’s memories and other photo features. My compromise is simple:
- I use docker-icloudpd to download our iCloud Photos to local storage over time. It’s been the most practical way I’ve found to back up multiple accounts into one place, though it does require occasional re-auth every so often. - I keep only the last ~2 years of media in iCloud and delete older ones after they’re archived locally. - For browsing and searching the older archive, I use Immich, which has been a great self-hosted personal photo cloud experience with a modern app feel.
For storage, I’ve found fast local disk matters a lot once you’re digging up photos from 5+ years ago. Something like an OWC 4M2 with M.2 drives keeps the experience snappy; a typical HDD-based NAS can feel sluggish when you just want to quickly pull up an old memory.
Nope, bzzzzt, wrong!
reconnecting•3h ago
cdrnsf•3h ago
lostlogin•2h ago
The files are there on the Mac, they are there to download on the cloud (various mentions of method mentioned here).
reconnecting•1h ago
raw_anon_1111•1h ago
mr_toad•1h ago
reconnecting•1h ago
Subject is to download photos from iCloud.
coder543•1h ago
As long as you are signed into the Mac with the same iCloud account used on the iPhone, this will download them all. No, you do not need to get them all downloaded to the iPhone ever for any reason for this to work. Period. You need to stop repeating that, because it is wrong. How many people have to say the same thing?
Yes, you will have to go into a hidden folder to access the Originals once they're downloaded if you want to copy them somewhere else, but it's like two clicks.
reconnecting•1h ago
However, in reality, when you use the same Apple account on both devices with the Photos app on macOS (yes, with the 'Download Originals' checkbox enabled), it only downloads photos that you upload from your phone.
And if you look at the iCloud tab in the Photos app, it says 'Automatically _upload_ and store all your photos and videos in iCloud', so it works from Mac to iCloud, and doesn't help to download full iCloud library.
coder543•1h ago
It absolutely works the way I said it does, because I have seen it work that way. Just because you accidentally turned off iCloud Photos in your Apple Account settings on that Mac (or some other similar issue) does not mean it does not work this way when properly signed in.
If you want something to try, go to System Settings -> Apple Account -> Photos and see if "Sync this mac" is turned off. It needs to be on. There could be other ways that this feature is disabled, but that is one of them.
Not seeing something work is not evidence that it does not work. You have not seen it work, but that is not proof it does not work.
Seeing it work is evidence that it works. I have seen it work.
Other people have seen it work that way, and their replies are all over this thread. Apple documents that it works this way.
Yes, it will upload photos to iCloud if enabled, but it also downloads them.
reconnecting•46m ago
I hope I've made it clear now.
And there is no such button to download all previous photos anywhere in macOS, just as there is no progress indicator for synchronising these photos, check the manual.
coder543•44m ago
lostlogin•1h ago
Are you wanting a way that doesn’t involve the photos app?
You can do that from iCloud over a browser.
reconnecting•1h ago
iCloud via browser has a limit of 1k photos per download.
wookmaster•54m ago
Tempest1981•2h ago
> Users of Google and Apple’s photo cloud services can now transfer images between them. It was already possible to export photos and videos from iCloud to Google Photos, but now it can also be done the other way around: from Google Photos to iCloud.
https://www.techzine.eu/news/applications/122196/google-and-... (2023 Data Transfer Initiative (DTI))
kccqzy•3h ago
hu3•3h ago
hackpelican•3h ago
possiblerobot•3h ago
Also, if you leave optimise storage disabled and continue to use Photos, every photo will be cloned in any local or cloud backups of your machine. This strategy creates additional photo redundancy separate from iCloud while still benefiting from library syncing.
lostlogin•2h ago
Not sure if the open/close is required, but I didn’t want to find out.
lencastre•2h ago
mbirth•2h ago
https://github.com/RhetTbull/osxphotos
Barbing•1h ago
(Been meaning to make a software demo gif gallery, best way to understand many categories of apps)
reconnecting•2h ago
Also, Photos on Mac doesn't have an option to download photos directly, so the only valid option Apple offers is to download them through the web interface (max 1,000 at a time).
There is no official way to download iCloud library that is over phone capacity. Period.
fizwidget•2h ago
Once everything’s downloaded on the Mac, you can either export through the Apple Photos menu or just copy the “originals” directly from the Photos bundle.
fakedang•2h ago
reconnecting•1h ago
js2•1h ago
Yes it does. It's called Download Originals to this Mac.
https://support.apple.com/guide/photos/use-icloud-photos-pht...
You keep asserting to the contrary, but I've been syncing my entire photos library to my Mac for years, since it was iPhoto even.
Obviously if you have a larger photos library than storage space on a particular device, you cannot synchronize the entire library to that specific device. e.g. my photos library vastly exceeds my iPhone 13 mini storage, so on my iPhone, I don't sync everything. But my Mac has 2 TB of storage, and Photos is setup to sync all my photos, and does so, reliably, and has been, again, for years now.
Additionally, unlike with this open source tool, I can keep advanced data protection enabled.
reconnecting•51m ago
> Any new photos and videos you add to Photos appear on all your devices that have iCloud Photos turned on.
You have your photos because they are new. If they had been taken before, they would not have synchronised automatically with Photos on MacOS.
coder543•48m ago
Yes, new ones will be uploaded. That doesn’t mean old ones won’t also be downloaded.
reconnecting•33m ago
Want to prove me wrong? Create a new macOS user and open Photos with your iCloud. It will be empty until you start copying photos from your phone. It will take much less time than arguing here.
coder543•30m ago
reconnecting•7m ago
Nextgrid•3h ago
But hey at least we've got Liquid (gl)ass now.
CharlesW•2h ago
I use Photos for macOS daily and I've never run into a bug with my 50K+ photos library. (To be fair, Photos doesn't do that much, and I use it more as a master catalog with Aperture's spiritual successor Nitro.)
> …and good luck exporting a lot of files out of said library…
Not sure why you would need luck to copy the "Originals" folder from the library package.
wookmaster•2h ago
reconnecting•2h ago
nemothekid•3h ago
Cmd+A > File > Export Unmodified Originals
reconnecting•1h ago
wookmaster•54m ago
reddalo•3h ago
catskull•3h ago
ireadmevs•2h ago
lostlogin•2h ago
Photo management is a bit of a nightmare as it’s an awful lot of small(ish) files.
Tempest1981•2h ago
reconnecting•1h ago
I'm OK with clicking a button to download all photos to Mac, but there is no such button. Or maybe there was one previously, but it has now disappeared.
einsteinx2•45m ago
Here’s the official documentation page for exporting directly using Photos for Mac without syncing everything locally: https://support.apple.com/guide/photos/download-photos-to-yo...
You can also choose to sync all photos locally with Photos for Mac by setting “Download Originals to this Mac” as described on this page which is what I do to keep a local copy: https://support.apple.com/guide/photos/photos-settings-pht51...
If your Mac doesn’t have enough space, export them to a USB hard drive or if you’re using the download originals option, first move your library location to the USB drive as also described on the link above.
reconnecting•43s ago
Indeed, that was exactly what I thought, but for some reason I don't understand, this approach doesn't work for me on a new (empty) Photos library on MacOS. Luckily, there is this open-source iCloud Photos Downloader, and also, someone provided a way to request Apple to provide all iCloud data for download.
SchemaLoad•45m ago