HN Explorer

Ask HN: How can I download all the data from iCloud?

14 points by fabmilo ↗ HN
I have around 45GB of data on iCloud, and the excessive number of very few files at the root level of the cloud drive makes `bird` (the macos drive sync agent) go crazy and not sync anymore. I don't see any command line tools (rclone has an open ticket from 2017 that's 5 years ago: https://github.com/rclone/rclone/issues/1778) or "downlad all" from the iCloud portal. Any ideas? Please help.

12 comments

[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 39.1 ms ] thread
msh
Apple have a data export function. Read more here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204055
fabmilo
where? can't find a function. I can only manually download the 10k files I have in the root folder each one in a single folder. one by one. there is not even a function to download bulk
msh
Sorry, it was the wrong link :(

The guide to bulk download in a zip file (like google takeout) is here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208502

fabmilo
Thank you but still no luck. I click, and then sends me to https://privacy.apple.com which give me DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN :(
ThePowerOfFuet
Then check your resolver because privacy.apple.com works just fine for me (and I have a fancy filtering DNS setup).
fabmilo
It works also for me now. Someone must have read this post and fixed it :)
nullish_signal
Is "re-organize folder hierarchy" not a workable solution?
fabmilo
No programmatic access is all click-based, and by file, you can't even delete an entire folder from the WebUI
ThePowerOfFuet
https://privacy.apple.com/
fabmilo
yes, I am going this route and uploading the data to google photos. It will take 7 days to move ~300GB. I discovered that apple uses gcloud underneath and that gcloud/gdrive is the fastest drive service compared to the others. So bought more drive space and move everything there with rclone.