moving photos off icloud

[Burt]

I have very basic questions about offloading photos from my iPhone to my PC. I'm getting love notes because my 5 GB icloud storage allotment is nearly full, 2/3 of which is photos that I don't need to be carrying around. I want to put many of the photos on my computer, but when I click on the file symbol, I see on the left: Documents, Pictures, iCloud pictures, iCloud drive and OneDrive. When I click on Documents and Pictures it shows 'This PC>Documents' and 'This PC>pictures' - Where are these files? On my C drive, iCloud or OneDrive?

I want to offload idrive photos to my C drive (I think?), but I don't want to set up some duplicate location if the standard Windows set up already has a place. Can someone give me a step by step of the easiest way to offload photos from my iCloud to my computer?

 

[jhellwig]

You have to install i cloud on your computer then set everything up to sync. It has been a while since I used iCloud but I think once they showed up on the computer you could move them out of the iCloud photo folder into a different one then delete them from iCloud. It is a huge pain but the only way to get photos off an iPhone onto a pc without having to pay for a cloud service like iCloud or one drive.

I can’t tell if you are paying for one drive but I find it to be somewhat better but files don’t transfer unless the app has is running.

Also make sure to change your camera photo format to something other than that dumb hice or whatever it is otherwise they don’t natively open on a pc without downloading more stuff.

 

[Propflux01]

Set up and use iCloud Photos on your Windows PC - Apple Support

iCloud Photos safely stores all your photos and videos in iCloud, so they're available on all your devices. Learn how to get started with iCloud Photos on your Windows PC.

support.apple.com

Maybe this will help?


If you just want to get the pics off the phone itself, on windows, when you plug the phone in the usb port, it should show up as a hard drive. Open it, and move the photos over via drag and drop into a folder. The delete the ones on your phone. Afterwards sync with iTunes and photos should be removed from Icloud.

 

[JavierH19]

Just plug your phone into a computer and through iTunes do a full backup. simple.

 

[Hall]

photos from my iPhone to my PC. I'm getting love notes because my 5 GB icloud storage

Phone storage and iCloud storage are two entirely different things. Personally, I think Apple has turned iCloud into a disaster and their "solution" is to just get people to buy add'l storage.

Go here, https://www.icloud.com/photos/, "Select All" (however you can do that), and click the Download button. Verify they're all now on your computer and you can delete them from iCloud Photos. It can take days or longer before Apple "refreshes" your iCloud storage allocation and stop getting their love notes....

 

[Burt]

Thanks all. I’m going to have to reread these a few times. I thought maybe it was just me but after reading these comments seem to say it’s not so self evident.

 

[Gyro Gearloose]

Beware of the sync function. The first time I tried to sync my phone to my laptop rather than download the photos off my phone it started uploading all my computer photos to the phone. Now I create a separate user on my (windows) laptop to download photos off my phone and sync to an empty pictures folder. It has been a couple of years since I did that so it may be different and better now.