I hope this tool is useful for you! Unfortunately I don't use it personally anymore, and I don't want to spend lots of time working on it. Please let me know if you want to help maintain it and respond to the GitHub issues and pull requests.
However, I'm happy to accept any pull requests to keep the project working if the code is high quality and has 100% test coverage. Thanks a lot for your help!
- A command-line tool to download all your iCloud photos.
- Works on Linux, Windows, and MacOS.
- Run as a scheduled cron task to keep a local backup of your photos and videos.
icloudpd is a Python package that can be installed using pip:
pip install icloudpd
If you need to install Python, see the Requirements section for instructions.
$ icloudpd <download_directory>
--username <username>
[-p, --password <password>]
[-d, --directory <directory>]
[--cookie-directory </cookie/directory>]
[--size (original|medium|thumb)]
[--live-photo-size (original|medium|thumb)]
[--recent <integer>]
[--until-found <integer>]
[-a, --album <album>]
[-l, --list-albums]
[--skip-videos]
[--skip-live-photos]
[--force-size]
[--auto-delete]
[--only-print-filenames]
[--folder-structure ({:%Y/%m/%d})]
[--set-exif-datetime]
[--smtp-username <smtp_username>]
[--smtp-password <smtp_password>]
[--smtp-host <smtp_host>]
[--smtp-port <smtp_port>]
[--smtp-no-tls]
[--notification-email <notification_email>]
[--notification-script PATH]
[--log-level (debug|info|error)]
[--no-progress-bar]
[--threads-num <threads>]
Options:
--username <username> Your iCloud username or email address
--password <password> Your iCloud password (default: use PyiCloud
keyring or prompt for password)
--cookie-directory </cookie/directory>
Directory to store cookies for
authentication (default: ~/.pyicloud)
--size [original|medium|thumb] Image size to download (default: original)
--live-photo-size [original|medium|thumb]
Live Photo video size to download (default:
original)
--recent INTEGER RANGE Number of recent photos to download
(default: download all photos)
--until-found INTEGER RANGE Download most recently added photos until we
find x number of previously downloaded
consecutive photos (default: download all
photos)
-a, --album <album> Album to download (default: All Photos)
-l, --list-albums Lists the avaliable albums
--skip-videos Don't download any videos (default: Download
both photos and videos)
--skip-live-photos Don't download any live photos (default:
Download live photos)
--force-size Only download the requested size (default:
download original if size is not available)
--auto-delete Scans the "Recently Deleted" folder and
deletes any files found in there. (If you
restore the photo in iCloud, it will be
downloaded again.)
--only-print-filenames Only prints the filenames of all files that
will be downloaded. (Does not download any
files.)
--folder-structure <folder_structure>
Folder structure (default: {:%Y/%m/%d})
--set-exif-datetime Write the DateTimeOriginal exif tag from
file creation date, if it doesn't exist.
--smtp-username <smtp_username>
Your SMTP username, for sending email
notifications when two-step authentication
expires.
--smtp-password <smtp_password>
Your SMTP password, for sending email
notifications when two-step authentication
expires.
--smtp-host <smtp_host> Your SMTP server host. Defaults to:
smtp.gmail.com
--smtp-port <smtp_port> Your SMTP server port. Default: 587 (Gmail)
--smtp-no-tls Pass this flag to disable TLS for SMTP (TLS
is required for Gmail)
--notification-email <notification_email>
Email address where you would like to
receive email notifications. Default: SMTP
username
--notification-script PATH Runs an external script when two factor
authentication expires. (path required:
/path/to/my/script.sh)
--log-level [debug|info|error] Log level (default: debug)
--no-progress-bar Disables the one-line progress bar and
prints log messages on separate lines
(Progress bar is disabled by default if
there is no tty attached)
--threads-num INTEGER RANGE Number of cpu threads(default: cpu count *
5)
--version Show the version and exit.
-h, --help Show this message and exit.
Example:
$ icloudpd --directory ./Photos \
--username [email protected] \
--password pass1234 \
--recent 500 \
--auto-delete
- Python 3.4+
- Python 2.x is not supported.
- pip
- Install Homebrew (if not already installed):
which brew > /dev/null 2>&1 || /usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"
- Install Python (includes
pip):
brew install python
Alternatively, you can download the Python 3.7.0 installer for Mac.
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y python
If your Apple account has two-factor authentication enabled, you will be prompted for a code when you run the script.
Two-factor authentication will expire after an interval set by Apple, at which point you will have to re-authenticate. This interval is currently two months.
Authentication cookies will be stored in a temp directory (/tmp/pyicloud on Linux, or /var/tmp/... on MacOS.) This directory can be configured with the --cookie-directory option.
You can receive an email notification when two-factor authentication expires by passing the
--smtp-username and --smtp-password options. Emails will be sent to --smtp-username by default,
or you can send to a different email address with --notification-email.
If you want to send notification emails using your Gmail account, and you have enabled two-factor authentication, you will need to generate an App Password at https://myaccount.google.com/apppasswords
You can store your password in the system keyring using the icloud command-line tool
(installed with the pyicloud dependency):
$ icloud --username [email protected]
ICloud Password for [email protected]:
Save password in keyring? (y/N)
If you have stored a password in the keyring, you will not be required to provide a password when running the script.
If you would like to delete a password stored in your system keyring,
you can clear a stored password using the --delete-from-keyring command-line option:
$ icloud --username [email protected] --delete-from-keyring
When you run the script for the first time, you might see an error message like this:
Bad Request (400)
This error often happens because your account hasn't used the iCloud API before, so Apple's servers need to prepare some information about your photos. This process can take around 5-10 minutes, so please wait a few minutes and try again.
If you are still seeing this message after 30 minutes, then please open an issue on GitHub and post the script output.
Follow these instructions to run icloudpd as a scheduled cron task.
# Clone the git repo somewhere
git clone https://github.com/ndbroadbent/icloud_photos_downloader.git
cd icloud_photos_downloader
# Copy the example cron script
cp cron_script.sh.example cron_script.sh
-
Update
cron_script.shwith your username, password, and other options -
Edit your "crontab" with
crontab -e, then add the following line:
0 */6 * * * /path/to/icloud_photos_downloader/cron_script.sh
Now the script will run every 6 hours to download any new photos and videos.
If you provide SMTP credentials, the script will send an email notification whenever two-step authentication expires.
This script is available in a Docker image: docker pull ndbroadbent/icloudpd
Usage:
# Downloads all photos to ./Photos
$ docker pull ndbroadbent/icloudpd
$ docker run -it --rm --name icloud -v $(pwd)/Photos:/data ndbroadbent/icloudpd:latest \
-v $(pwd)/cookies:/cookies \
-e TZ=America/Los_Angeles \
icloudpd --directory /data \
--cookie-directory /cookies \
--folder-structure {:%Y/%Y-%m-%d} \
--username [email protected] \
--password pass1234 \
--size original \
--recent 500 \
--auto-deleteOn Windows:
- use
%cd%instead of$(pwd) - or full path, e.g.
-v c:/photos/icloud:/data
Building image locally:
$ docker build . -t icloudpd
$ docker run -it --rm icloudpd:latest icloudpd --versionInstall dependencies:
sudo pip install -r requirements.txt
sudo pip install -r requirements-test.txt
Run tests:
pytest
Before submitting a pull request, please check the following:
- All tests pass
- Run
./scripts/test
- Run
- 100% test coverage
- After running
./scripts/test, you will see the test coverage results in the output - You can also open the HTML report at:
./htmlcov/index.html
- After running
- Code is formatted with autopep8
- Run
./scripts/format
- Run
- No pylint errors
- Run
./scripts/lint(orpylint icloudpd)
- Run
- If you've added or changed any command-line options, please update the Usage section in the README.
If you need to make any changes to the pyicloud library,
icloudpd uses a fork of this library that has been renamed to pyicloud-ipd.
Please clone my pyicloud fork
and check out the pyicloud-ipd
branch. PRs should be based on the pyicloud-ipd branch and submitted to
ndbroadbent/pyicloud.
$ git clone https://github.com/ndbroadbent/icloud_photos_downloader.git
$ cd icloud_photos_downloader
$ docker build -t ndbroadbent/icloudpd .