How to Download All Your iCloud Photos at Once

Whether you're switching away from iCloud, doing a full backup, or just want your photos locally — here's how to download your entire iCloud photo library at once.

Why Downloading Everything Can Be Tricky

iCloud Photos stores your originals in the cloud and keeps smaller optimised versions on your devices. To get the full resolution originals you need to download them specifically — not just sync the previews.

For large libraries this can be time consuming and tricky to do manually.

Method 1 — Using Migrate Moments (Best for Large Libraries)

Migrate Moments is purpose built for downloading iCloud originals in bulk. It handles large libraries intelligently — downloading in smart batches so your Mac never runs out of disk space.

Download Migrate Moments free on your Mac

Connect an external drive with enough free space

Open the app and scan your library

Select your external drive as the destination

Click Export to SSD — it downloads and saves everything automatically

Your photos are saved organised by year and month. Nothing is deleted from iCloud unless you explicitly choose to remove it.

Method 2 — Using the Photos App

For smaller libraries you can download directly through the Photos app.

Open Photos on your Mac

Go to Photos → Settings → iCloud

Select Download Originals to this Mac

Wait for all originals to download — this can take hours or days for large libraries

Once downloaded, go to File → Export → Export Unmodified Originals

Choose your destination and export

The downside is this downloads everything to your Mac first which requires enough local storage, then you export separately.

Method 3 — iCloud.com

For a small number of photos you can download directly from icloud.com:

Go to icloud.com/photos in your browser

Select the photos you want

Click the download button

This works for small batches but is impractical for thousands of photos.

How Long Does It Take?

It depends on your library size and internet speed:

10GB library — 1-2 hours

50GB library — 4-8 hours

200GB+ library — could be a full day or more

Migrate Moments manages this automatically in the background so you don't need to babysit it.

What You'll Need

A Mac running macOS 14 or later

An external drive with enough free space for your entire library

A stable Wi-Fi connection

Migrate Moments (free to download)

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