Exporting and Re-importing Photos Between iPhone, PC, and iCloud

[macbackup11233]

TL;DR: Looking for the best way to export photos from an iPhone to a PC and the most efficient way to reimport them to iCloud Photos?

Background:

I've always used an iPhone and recently started using a MacBook for all my work, gradually transitioning to using my Mac exclusively for daily computing and my PC only for gaming. Before this, I was syncing photos from my iPhone to both OneDrive and iCloud so I could access them on my PC when needed. I also had older photos spread across various files that were not being synced.

On my PC I managed to consolidate all 15k photos and run a duplicate scanner and got rid of most of the duplicates. However, I need to run that scan on my windows images vs my iCloud images. I also am having issues with a large amount of files and their metadata. My overall goal is to export all of my existing photos (10K) from iCloud photo and run a duplicate scan across my images on my PC with the ones I export as well as use a metadata tool to correct a the issues with the files.

Additionally, my macbook only has 256gb of storage and I don't currently have space to download originals and store them on my mac to export them. However, I do have enough room on my iPhone. I've started the process of downloading originals to my iPhone from iCloud photos and I'm wondering what would be the best way to export them onto my PC?

Once I've exported all 10k photos and done metadata corrections and duplicate scans on windows I would reupload everything to my iCloud photos app. I've already attempted the windows iCloud nonsense and will not be using that.

What is the best and quickest way to import photos into the iCloud photos?

 

[SebCohen]

Same issue. I meticulously cull and store photos on my Win PC. Importing them via iTunes reduces the size of images, making them annoyingly awful on the iPhone. I’ve researched a bit and everyone says you need to upload to iCloud and the sync with iPhone. I haven’t tried via an external ssd, but fear importing them will result in the same reduction in resolution.

No, I don’t want Photos to keep control over my images. I’d rather loose my right foot.

 

[macbackup11233]

Yes, I am currently in that situation. I posted about this on Friday, and my photos still have not finished downloading to my phone from iCloud after selecting “save originals.” The sync keeps stopping, and it’s difficult to determine why or troubleshoot the issue. I decided to leave it running, and now, as of Sunday, I am down to the last 500 downloads.

I hope that once all the originals are downloaded to my phone, I can connect it to my PC and transfer them. Have you had any experience doing this before?

After that I plan to stop using photos all together and figure out a self hosted solution.

 

[Tagbert]

You could get an external SSD for your MacBook, move your photo library there and then download all of the originals. Then you could copy photos from the photo library folder, if needed.

If you can keep everything within iCloud and iCloud devices, then syncing and file management is easy. Trying to manually sync with separate files will always be a complicated pain in the ass.