Download all photos from iCloud in one rar/zip-file, possible?

[ItsMeMicke]

Hello,

I want to backup my icloud photos (around 3000) to a Samsung T7 ssd.

Is it possible to download all photos from iCloud as a rar/zip-file?

I dont have a computer, only iPhone 15Pro and a iPad Pro M2.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

You’d need to have all the photos on a device. So one of them (the phone or the iPad) needs enough storage for the whole iCloud library, then set that device to “Download and keep originals.”

Once that’s done, you can select photos and “Export Unmodified Originals” to the external. It won’t be a tar/zip/etc, it’ll literally be just copies of the photos. But they’ll be backed up.

Once that’s done, THEN you could compress them, if you want - there’s no built-in utility but there are apps. Unless there are a lot of RAW files, though, I don’t see the point. You won’t save enough space to worry about, and you just make the photos harder to access.

 

[01cowherd]

You’d need to have all the photos on a device. So one of them (the phone or the iPad) needs enough storage for the whole iCloud library, then set that device to “Download and keep originals.”

Once that’s done, you can select photos and “Export Unmodified Originals” to the external. It won’t be a tar/zip/etc, it’ll literally be just copies of the photos. But they’ll be backed up.

This is the simplest way. With 3,000 photos, you might have to do it in batches if the app freezes because iOS doesn’t allow much RAM. You can also create a Shortcut to do this if you intend to backup the entire photo library on a regular basis.

Once that’s done, THEN you could compress them, if you want - there’s no built-in utility but there are apps. Unless there are a lot of RAW files, though, I don’t see the point. You won’t save enough space to worry about, and you just make the photos harder to access.

You actually can compress files to .zip natively in the Files app (since iOS 17?). You select the files or folder, hold/right-click/tap More, and choose Compress. But like you said, not much point. For OP, photos don’t typically compress well because they’re usually already compressed (JPEG/HEIC). If you’re not using RAW (ProRAW on iPhone), the only advantage of zipping is that it’s a single file. Otherwise, it’s fine to put them in a single folder and call it a day.