iPhone Videos now in .ZIP file instead of MP4s

[wjh]

This is new: If I download an iPhone video from iCloud to my Windows PC, it is no longer in mp4 format. Instead it's a .zip file that opens into a .mov file. Slow motion effects from my iPhone are lost in the .mov files. Previously they were not. Not surprisingly a conversion (.mov to .mp4) did not fix this.

I was much happier when an mp4 video downloaded as an mp4 video and not a .zip file. True, these are large files.

 

[crawfish963]

How are you migrating the files onto your desktop? Describe the specific process, please.

 

[wjh]

Photos and videos originate on my iPhone X.
1. Open iCloud for Windows on my PC.
2. Select image or video (in this case videos).
3. Click iCloud Download icon.
4. Go to Downloads folder to access video.

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Just tried this again:

Test 1:
Selected 1 video in iCloud
Downloaded it as above.
It downloads as .mp4 and plays OK. (It's slo-mo and plays as slo-mo.)
--So this works just fine, at least this time.

Test 2:
Selected 5 videos in iCloud.
Downloaded it as above.
I get a .zip file ICloud Photos.zip.
When I click it, it seems to self-extract 5 videos.
3 are .mp4. 2 are .mov. One .mov plays just fine. The other .mov gives this message when I double-click:
To play this video, you need a new codec to view this video. HEVC Video Extensions, available from the Microsoft store.

--So it seems like the results when downloading from iCloud are inconsistent and unreliable in the sense that you might get an .mp4 file or a .mov file; and it it's .mov it might or not play (on the Windows platorm).

 

[NoBoMac]

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207022