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Summary

iCloud can backup your iPhone photos safely. However, once photos are deleted or lost from iPhone, you can use Apeaksoft iPhone Data Recovery to scan and download iCloud photos directly without any device.

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To download older ones, click “Download photos and videos” in the Windows Explorer toolbar, choose the photos and videos you want to download by year, then click Download. Note: In iCloud for Windows version 10 or later, if a photo or video is changed on another device or on iCloud.com, it is updated automatically on your PC.

• 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.
• Step 4: Click the download icon in the upper right corner, looking like a down arrow in a cloud, and select a folder to download iCloud photos to your PC or Mac. Note: Actually, you can easily download all iCloud photos by pressing Ctrl + A to select all photos if you have less than 1000 items there, then clicking on the download button.

While you use iCloud to backup photos from iPhone or iPad, you will be given two options, Optimize iPhone Device and Download and Keep Originals. However, many of you may ignore or even do not know it.

As a result, they will find the photos exported to computer via some third-party tools are not full resolution.

What are they? How to use it?

Here, we will show the comprehensive introduction of it and the guide to use it.

Part 1. Introduction of 'optimize iPhone Storage' and 'Download and Keep Originals'

'Download and Keep Originals' and 'optimize iPhone Storage' are the options given to you while you set up photos backup to iCloud on your iPhone/iPad/iPod touch.

iCloud photos keep all of your photos and videos in original and high-resolution version, while you turn on iCloud photos backup.

Back to your iOS device, it will leave the two options for you.

'Download and Keep Originals' means that the photos that will be backed up to iCloud will be kept original and full-resolution both on iCloud and iOS device.

'optimize iPhone Storage' means that the pictures that will be backed up to iCloud will be replaced with optimized version on iOS device, and full versions are stored in iCloud.

So the difference between those two options is the photos resolutions that are kept on your iOS device after iCloud backup.

Part 2. How to Use 'Download and Keep Originals' and 'optimize iPhone Storage'

'Download and Keep Originals' or 'optimize iPhone Storage'?

The option will be decided by yourself based on your own needs.

If your iPhone has enough space, it will be OK to store original photos in full-resolution on iPhone. However, once your iPhone is low on space, 'optimize iPhone Storage' will be good and automatically enabled, smaller and space-saving photos and videos are kept on your device.

For manually changing the settings, the steps are very easy to follow.

Step 1 On your iOS device running, go to 'Settings' >'your name' > 'iCloud' > 'Photos'.

For iOS device running in iOS 10.2 or earlier, tap 'Settings' > 'iCloud' > 'Photos'

And then to turn on 'iCloud Photos'.

Step 2Hit 'Optimize iPhone Storage' or 'Download and Keep Originals' option as you wish.

You may need: How to Share Photos with iCloud Photo Sharing

Part 3. How to Access Full-Resolution Photos on iPhone

As mentioned above, once you select 'optimize iPhone Storage', your iPhone will keep the optimized images with smaller size. In other word, the images on your iPhone will be not full-resolution.

When you access your iPhone photos on computer with some third-party tools, you will find the image may be not clear as its originals.

Want to access the full-resolution photos? Here are 3 ways, download iCloud photos to iPhone, download iPhone photos from iCloud, and disable photos iCloud backup.

Transfer Full Resolution Photos from iPhone to Computer

For downloading the original full-resolution photos on iPhone, you just need to switch from 'optimize iPhone Storage' to 'Download and Keep Originals' in Part 2.

Or just turn off photos backup on iCloud.

Go to 'Settings' >'your name' > 'iCloud' > 'Photos' > Toggle 'iCloud Photos' to OFF.

For iOS device running in iOS 10.2 or earlier, tap 'Settings' > 'iCloud' > 'Photos' > Toggle 'iCloud Photos' to OFF.

Note: Once you disable photos backup on iCloud, the photos synced to iCloud before will store in iCloud, but it will not sync to iCloud later. However, the photos backed up to iCloud will still keep optimized versions on your iOS device.

Then you could use third-party apps like MobieTrans, iPhone Transfer, etc. to easily transfer photos from iPhone/iPad/iPod touch to computer with original high quality.

Transfer contacts, photos, videos, music and messages from iPhone/iPad/iPod to computer, sync data between iOS devices, and add data from computer to iOS device directly.

Don't miss: How to sync photos from iPhone to Computer

Download the Original Photos from iCloud for iPhone

Moreover, you can use Apeaksoft iPhone Data Recovery to access the full resolution images from Camera Roll, Photo Stream, Photo Library and app photos. Apart from accessing photos from iCloud, it can also restore the photos from iTunes. Moreover, even the deleted photos can be retrieved from iPhone 12 Pro Max, 12 Pro, 12 mini, 12, 11 Pro Max, 11 Pro, 11, XS (Max), XR, X, 8 (Plus), 7 (Plus), 6s/6 (Plus), 5s, 5c, 5e, 4S, iPad Pro/mini/Air, etc.

• Recover deleted photos from iCloud backups with a few steps.
• View iCloud photos and selectively retrieve certain ones.
• Keep the original format and quality of iCloud photos.
• Access iCloud photos on your computer without iPhone.

Download for WinDownload for Mac

Step 1 Free download iPhone Data Recovery to your computer. Install and run it immediately after the installation.

Select 'Recover from iCloud Backup File' in the left bar. Input your Apple ID and the password to log in to iCloud account.

Step 2 After the successful login, you can see all the iCloud backup with the iCloud account.

Select the one you need, and click 'Download' to start to download the iCloud backup.

Step 3 In the pop-up window, you need to select the data type that you want to access from iCloud.

Here, we need to select 'Camera Roll', 'Photo Stream', 'Photo Library' and 'App Photos'. If you have other photos that are attached in app like Kik, Line, WhatsApp, Messenger, etc., just also checkmark them. Then click 'Next' to start to scan and download the full-resolution photos from iCloud.

If you want to download documents from iCloud to Mac or Windows, then you should select the checkbox of App Document.

Step 4 Wait minutes and you can see all the selected photo types show in the left sidebar.

Click it and the detailed photos will show in the right window.

Checkmark the full resolution photos that you want to download, and click 'Recover' to save them on your computer.

Download Icloud Photos To Mac Catalina

Download Original iPhone Photos from iCloud to Computer

If you only want to access the photos from iCloud to computer in full-resolution, you just download the photos from www.icloud.com.

Go to iCloud.com on your computer > Sign into your iCloud account with Apple ID and password > Click 'Photos' > Select one or more photos and videos that you want to download > Click and hold the cloud icon in the upper-right corner of the window > Choose 'Unmodified Original' to download the original full-resolution photos to your computer.

Note: Surely, the photos on your iPhone are still kept as optimized version. Want to get the downloaded full-resolution photos into iPhone? Check here.

Part 4. FAQs of Downloading iCloud Photos

Why are my iCloud Photos not downloading?

There are many reasons for iCloud photos not downloading to iPhone. iCloud Photo Library is not enabled. Network connection is not available, and more. For the detailed reasons and solutions to this problem, you should visit this post: How to fix iCloud photos not downloading.

Which is better optimize iPhone storage or download and keep originals?

optimize iPhone Storage will keep the optimized photos on your iOS device after the iCloud backup, and keeps the full-resolution of the pictures in iCloud, which will take up more space on iCloud and free up space on iOS device. Download and Keep Originals will keep full-resolution images on both iOS device and iCloud, which will eat up the space on iCloud and iOS device. If you want to view the full-resolution images on iOS device, then Download and Keep Originals is better for you. If you want to free up space for iOS device, then optimize iPhone Storage is better for you.

How long does it take to download and keep originals to iPhone?

The time you take to download and keep the originals to iPhone from iCloud will depend on your Internet connection status and file size. However, one thing you should notice that the original photos and videos are stored in your iCloud account for 30 days. You should download them within the time.

Conclusion

Here we mainly talk about the options of 'Download and Keep Originals' and 'optimize iPhone Storage' in iCloud Photos. You can use it to help free up iPhone storage or keep the full resolution of images on a high-storage iPhone. When you use third-party apps to transfer photos from iPhone, you had better keep original full-resolution images on device.

Which one will be your choice? Leave your comments below.

How do I retrieve photos from iCloud to my iPhone? Read the post to get a new but reliable way to recover photos from iCloud to your iPhone/iPad/iPod touch, or to Mac or PC computer.

I deleted some of my photos by accident yesterday. How do I retrieve photos from iCloud to my iPhone? Can anyone give me some suggestions?

In general, you can recover photos from iCloud by visiting iCloud online to export the photos as long as you’ve enabled iCloud Photo Library on iPhone/iPad/iPod touch, or restoring the iCloud backup that contains the photos you need.

But unfortunately, if you deleted the photos from iPhone while iCloud Photo Library was on, they may also be removed from iCloud online because of the auto-sync feature.

At this time, recovering photos from iCloud backup may work, however, all the data on iOS devices will be replaced by the content in the iCloud backup.

In the post, we introduce you to a special tool to recover photos from iCloud backup without restoring and erasing.

With this excellent iCloud backup extractor, you can selectively recover iCloud photos to your computer, or to your iPhone 12/11/XS/XR/X/8/7/6s or iPad/iPod touch.

A Brief Introduction of PhoneRescue for iOS

To help you recover deleted photos from iCloud, PhoneRescue for iOS is strongly recommended, which has been trusted by millions of iOS users for data recovery.

First of all, let’s check out its outstanding features below:

• Recover photos without erasing previous data.
• Preview backup and selectively recover photos you like.
• Photos are retrieved directly to the Photos app or saved to your computer (PC/Mac).
• Download and manage iCloud backup photos locally
• Besides photos, it also supports recovering deleted messages, videos, contacts, notes, calendars, and other files from iCloud backup.

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Recover Photos from iCloud Backup Without Restoring

Icloud Photos Download To Mac

With PhoneRescue, you just need 5 steps to recover photos from iCloud backup to iPhone.

Step 1. Download PhoneRescue for iOSon your computer > Choose Recover from iCloud mode > Click Next button to log in to your iCloud account.

Step 2. In the category, we can see many options. Here we select the iCloud Backup option.

Step 3. Select one iCloud backup > Click Compare buttonif you want to find out the differences between backups > Click on Next tab to continue the process.

Step 4. Then it would pop up a screen to enable you to choose the exact data you would like to recover > Tap on Photos only and click the OK button to download the backup. After the process is completed, select one iCloud backup and click Next to analyze/access content in it.

Choose Photos to Download

Step 5. Select Photos on the left side > Choose the photos you want to retrieve > Click To Device button to get them back to iPhone’s Photos App directly or click To Computer button to recover them to PC/Mac computer.

If you have not found the photos you want, it probably because they are not contained in this backup file. You can try another backup file to check, Or you can directly recover them from your iPhone iPad without backup.

PhoneRescue for iOS – iPhone Data Recovery

• Recover photos from iPhone even without backup.
• No harm to the existing data and no need to restore your iPhone.
• Recover iPhone photos from iTunes or iCloud backup directly.
• Support all iPhones and iOS 14 supported, 100% clean & safe.

Free Download100% Clean & Safe

Free Download100% Clean & Safe

How to Restore Photos from iCloud via Recent Deleted Folder

If you accidentally deleted photos in the last few days, you can find and restore the deleted photos through the Recently Deleted Folder of iCloud. You can follow the steps below to retrieve those pictures.

Icloud Photos Don't Download To Mac

Step 1. Visit the iCloud website in your computer browser and log in to your iCloud account and password > Select “Photos” in the left control panel of the homepage, and then you can see the recently deleted options.

Step 2. Click this option to view recently deleted images. From the available pictures, you can mark those you need to return and click the “Recover” button.

iCloud Recently deleted folder only stores recently deleted photos for 30 days. After that time, items will be permanently deleted.

Restore Photos from iCloud Backup

If you have previously enabled the “iCloud Photo Library” option in “Settings”, you can try this method to restore photos from iCloud Photo Library to iPhone, because iCloud will automatically sync your data to the cloud. However, before you do that, you should learn the disadvantages of this method: First, you cannot selectively restore specific photos. What’s more all data and settings on the iPhone will be overwritten.

Icloud Photos Download To Mac High Sierra

1. Open Settings > iCloud > Reset > Tap on Erase all content and settings to reset the iPhone to the new one > After that, turn on the device and follow the instructions until you get to the “Apps and Data” screen.
2. Click Restore from iCloud Backup > Then select a backup based on the backup time and data size. Generally, as long as you have backed up your photos with iCloud, you can definitely recover photos from iCloud Photo Stream this way.

The Bottom Line

Download Icloud Photos To Mac Catalina

If there are some important photos in iTunes backup instead of iCloud, you can also use PhoneRescue or AnyTrans to extract them. And actually, you can extract more than photos from iTunes or iCloud. For example, PhoneRescue enables you to get 31+ types of files from iTunes or iCloud backup. So why not download PhoneRescue to restore photos from iCloud now?

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