Technically, there is: users of the European Union can get a full export of all data that Apple has about them, including all the stored photos. It can be requested from here: https://privacy.apple.com/

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catskull 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I was able to request a photo dump as a non-EU customer using this link.

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reconnecting 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It sounds really weird that instead of making a separate utility, or allowing you to download iCloud Photos in the native Photos application on Mac, Apple requires you to go through a legal procedure.

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.

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einsteinx2 4 hours ago | parent [-]

> or allowing you to download iCloud Photos in the native Photos application on Mac

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 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Thank you. That's exactly what I expected to work, but for some reason this approach failed for me on a new Mac with an empty Photos library. I enabled "Download Originals," but 10+ years of iCloud photos never appeared. There's no manual "fetch all from iCloud" button, no progress indicator, no way to diagnose what's wrong - the sync just silently fails. Luckily, iCloud Photos Downloader bypasses Photos entirely and pulls directly from iCloud.

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ireadmevs 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

How does the archive they provide look like? Many zip files? I would like to retrieve them and offload to another storage service but I don’t have local storage enough to hold all of it at the same time, unpack and then reupload. I would need to do it in stages.

	▲	Tempest1981 6 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Yes, many ZIP files. You can select the ZIP file sizes, from 1 to 25 GB, iirc. Although a few end up larger than 25 for some reason. And took 1-2 days for Apple to "prepare".
	▲	lostlogin 6 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		While that’s a pain for you, it’s also a pain if they have multiple files for those that have enough storage. Photo management is a bit of a nightmare as it’s an awful lot of small(ish) files.

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SchemaLoad 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Doesn't work if you have Advanced Data Protection (end to end encryption) enabled.