Hey everyone,
I'm trying to download my entire iCloud Photos library, which has around 180,000 items and is about 1TB in size, to an external SSD on my Mac Mini M4 (which has only 256GB of internal storage). Here's what I've done so far:
1. Created a new Photos library on the external SSD.
2. Set it as the System Photo Library.
3. Enabled iCloud Photos and selected 'Download Originals to this Mac.'
But now, Photos just shows 'Downloading 181,864 Originals,' and it seems to be completely stuck—no progress after several hours. I've even tried restarting my Mac, used a Terminal command to force the download, and checked Activity Monitor, but everything appears idle. I can see all my photos on my iPhone, so they're definitely still there.
Has anyone else run into this issue or found a better way to download the originals? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
1 Answer
First off, check how much free space you have on iCloud, your Mac Mini, and your external drive. You mentioned your external SSD is formatted as APFS, which is good! Have you tried breaking down the download into smaller chunks, like 25% at a time? Sometimes, Photos can get overwhelmed with such a large library.
iCloud has 2TB total, and I'm currently using 1.3TB, with most of that being my photos. My external SSD has 4TB available. I’m just selecting the main folder for downloads. Should I try manually selecting smaller groups of photos instead? I really don’t want to, considering it’s over 180k items! Thanks for your advice, I’ve been at this for over a week!