I Kind of Fixed My iCloud Photos Problem and All I Got Was Two Blog Posts and Probably Years Off My Life

An advantage of publishing my problems with wide circulation is that sometimes people will be very helpful in their comments and emails.¹ Plenty of people kindly suggested alternatives and ways to correct the problems I was having and, after many days’ work, I think I am on better footing.

But first, it is my fault as a writer that it seems I did not differentiate clearly enough the two related issues I have experienced with iCloud Photos. The first problem is that it is very easy to get images into an iCloud-stored photo library, but extremely difficult to extract them. This issue is compounded by a lack of transparency and data verification. The second problem is that it is necessary to commit to a lifetime of storage if one uses a third-party cloud option.

The software suggestions I received are manifold. The first is a category comprising a bunch of self-hosted options, of which the most popular seems to be Immich. This would solve the problem of a long-term commitment to a third-party provider, but it requires me to be a hobbyist data centre technician and I cannot handle more things on my to-do list. Yes, I have looked at the documentation and it seems straightforward enough. No, I still do not want to take this on. Perhaps one day, but not now.

I am, in fact, happy to pay someone to deal with that for me. Apple should be doing a better job of it than I ever could. Its data centres, whether first-party or third-party, surely have redundancies upon redundancies, and a level of data validation I simply cannot compete with. My dispute with this is not about third-party storage per se. Rather, it is how shoddy an experience it is to move photos out of iCloud and, also, my inability to verify that everything is as safe and secure as it should be.

But I was pointed to two pieces of software I can use that made my life easier and got me onto more stable footing. The first is Parachute Backup (MacOS 15 or later), which created a backup of my entire iCloud photo library and, soon, will also be backing up everything else I have in iCloud, for good measure. This is good software; I like it a lot. But I will provide a couple of caveats up-front if you are attempting a similar strategy.

Most obviously, it will download everything, which means you need a disk big enough to hold a discrete copy of everything you store in iCloud. That could be expensive right now. I bought a 2 TB external Samsung SSD a few years ago for $400, and it is currently nearly $800 on Amazon. But I do hoard old hard disks and I found a 2 TB one I could clear up.

You are also going to need patience. Not only will it take time to download, depending on your internet connection and the amount of stuff you have in iCloud, Parachute does not have any built-in bandwidth controls from what I could see. I am sure I could have found a way to limit it, but I just let it run. It took five days.

But now I am pretty sure I have a local copy of everything in iCloud. This is the feeling I should get from having “download originals to this Mac” switched on — which I have for several years — but that is apparently not a reliable preference. Also, this copy of my photo library is meaningfully organized in a date-based directory tree instead of some abstruse collection of randomized folders.

The other piece of software to which I owe my newfound sense of calm is PowerPhotos. Despite being hands-down the most frequent software recommendation from readers, it never came up in my earlier searches. I guess I was not using the correct keywords. In any case, it is an excellent application. Because I did the full Parachute backup, I felt comfortable with PowerPhotos modifying my library and generally doing its thing. It lets me easily drag photos from my primary iCloud-connected library to my archive, and its duplicate image finder is way better than the one in Photos.

What that means is that I can now confidently maintain that archive photos library. It is not worth the increase in iCloud storage costs for me to carry all of my tens of thousands of photos everywhere I go. For me, it is definitely worth the cost of these two software licenses to have more control.

(Also, an extra nice thing about PowerPhotos is that it has been around for ages, and old versions of the software remain available for download. The latest ones do not work on my iMac, but 2.x versions do, and a license key unlocks them all the same.)

I am receiving nothing by pointing you to either of these applications. I paid for both myself. However, I heard from the new owner of Parachute shortly after I published my article with a license for each of the Mac and iOS versions. I do not usually accept codes and I bought my own license anyhow, so I asked if I could give those codes away. I only have one of each to give out and they are only valid for another couple of days, so shoot me an email and let me know which one you want. (Update: Both licenses have been claimed.)