Apple’s iCloud Photo Library is a Trap
Once you’re in, you won’t get out
I have over 100GB of photos stored on Apple’s servers. Over a decade of memories. Holidays, days out, work trips and too many photos of my dogs. I pay for this convenience. Recently, it became clear that my photo collection was so big that it would tip into the next tier of Apple’s monthly iCloud storage plan. The price jump is relatively large. I wanted to avoid it and sought ways to extricate myself from iCloud Photos. What follows is a cautionary tale of getting in too deep with a service that does not want to let you go.
Thanks to a search online, I discovered that I could access the original photos in my photo library by going into the file system. The Photos app organises your files in a database structure, but you can get into the package by navigating to your user area then ‘Pictures’ and right-clicking the ‘Photos Library’ file and selecting ‘show package contents’. Here’s the folder structure when you view the originals:
I know what you’re thinking: folders with a lower number must be the oldest and those with a later number the newest photos, right? Wrong. The photos are arrayed all over the…
