- You can easily download your iCloud photos onto your PC through your web browser.
- In order to see and download your iCloud photos onto your PC you have to have the "iCloud Photos" setting turned on in your Apple settings.
- You can choose to download multiple photos or even entire albums from iCloud.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Smart phones have become increasingly more popular for taking photos, and in turn the sale of digital cameras has steadily declined. Apple especially has improved smart phone camera quality with each iOS update and new iPhone model, allowing anyone with an iPhone to take near professional quality photos from their pocket.
But rather than keeping our photos exclusively on our iPhones or iPads, it's easy to download photos to your PC using iCloud.
Check out the products mentioned in this article:
iPhone 11 (From $699.99 at Best Buy)
iPad (From $329.99 at Best Buy)
How to download photos and videos from iCloud to a PC
As long as you are using iCloud to back up your iPhone, it only takes a few clicks to download some or all of your photos to your computer.
If you're not currently backing up your photos to iCloud, you should. For details, see our article, "How to backup an iPhone to iCloud, to a computer through iTunes, or to an external hard drive."
1. In a browser on your PC, navigate to iCloud.com and log in with your Apple ID credentials when requested.
2. Click the "Photos" icon.
3. Find the photos you want to download. You can click on an album or scroll through the entire library. You can also switch between the "All Photos" view and "Moments" by choosing "Photos" or "Moments" at the top of the screen.
4. Click the photo or photos you want to download to your PC. To select several photos, hold the CTRL key while you click to multi-select photos. If you want to download all your photos at once, press CTRL+A. You should see the number of selected photos indicated in the upper right corner.
5. Click the Download button at the top of the screen. It's shaped like a cloud with an arrow pointing down.
Click the Download button at the top of the screen to download your selected photos or albums. Dave Johnson/Business Insider6. In the dialog box, choose where you want to save them, click "Save File" and then click "OK."
After selecting the photos you want to download, click the Download arrow to save them to your PC. Dave Johnson/Business InsiderIf you download more than one photo at once, Windows will save them as a compressed zip file. You can unzip the photos by following the steps in the article "How to zip and unzip files on a Windows 10 computer using built-in tools."
You can find the photo (or photos) in the location where your browser stores downloaded files.
Your photos will be found in the Download folder or wherever downloads from your web browser are stored. Dave Johnson/Business Insider
Related coverage from How To Do Everything: Tech:
How to access the iPhone backups stored on your Mac computer in 3 different ways
How to print contacts from your iPhone using iCloud, to have physical copies whenever you need them
How to log into iCloud on your iPhone with an Apple ID, to access and manage your iCloud account
How to add music to a video on your iPhone using the iMovie app, and choose from stock music or your own library
Dave Johnson
Freelance Writer
Dave Johnson is a technology journalist who writes about consumer tech and how the industry is transforming the speculative world of science fiction into modern-day real life. Dave grew up in New Jersey before entering the Air Force to operate satellites, teach space operations, and do space launch planning. He then spent eight years as a content lead on the Windows team at Microsoft. As a photographer, Dave has photographed wolves in their natural environment; he's also a scuba instructor and co-host of several podcasts. Dave is the author of more than two dozen books and has contributed to many sites and publications including CNET, Forbes, PC World, How To Geek, and Insider.
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