iCloud Photos of another Apple ID

When you connect another Apple ID's iCloud Drive, Storage Studio also gives you that Apple ID's iCloud Photos library. There's nothing extra to add: it uses the same sign-in. The library is read-only — you can look at it and copy photos out of it, but Storage Studio can't add, edit or delete anything in it.

Where it appears

The photos show up under the account's nickname followed by Photos. If your iCloud account is called icloud-family, its library is icloud-family Photos.

• In Finder — in the Storage Studio location, as its own folder next to the iCloud Drive one. You can show or hide it like any other source in the Mounting tab of Remotes & Accounts. The Hidden and Recently Deleted albums are left out.
• In Data Transfers — click the cloud button beside Source and choose Browse nickname Photos to pick a folder, or Use all of nickname Photos to start from the whole library.

It's offered as a source only. It never appears as a destination, because the library can't be written to.

%% caption: One iCloud sign-in gives you two places, and what each one allows
flowchart TD
  A[Another Apple ID, signed in once] --> B[iCloud Drive]
  A --> C[iCloud Photos]
  B --> D[Read and write: copy to it, sync, browse in Finder]
  C --> E[Read-only: browse in Finder, copy out with Data Transfers]
  E --> F[Your Mac]
  E --> G[Your external drive]
  E --> H[Another connected account]

Copying photos out

You might use this to keep a copy of a family member's photo library somewhere you control, or to bring photos from an old Apple ID across before you stop using it.

1. Open Data Transfers and click New Transfer.
2. Choose Copy — it leaves the library untouched.
3. For Source, click the cloud button and choose Use all of nickname Photos, or browse to a smaller part of the library.
4. For Destination, choose a folder on your Mac, your external drive, or another connected account.
5. Start the transfer. Turn on Dry run (preview only) first if you want to see what would be copied without copying anything — see trying a transfer first with Dry run.

Move won't work here, because nothing can be removed from the library. Sync (one-way) also works if you want a folder that keeps matching the library — but remember it removes files from the destination that aren't in the library. See Copy, Move, Sync or Two-way sync for the differences.

Things to know

• It stays signed in for as long as the iCloud Drive account does. When Apple asks for a new code — about once a month — use Sign in again on the iCloud account and the photos come back too. See when an account needs signing in again.
• Large libraries take a while to list the first time you open them in Finder.
• Your own Mac's Photos library isn't part of this; this is only for the extra Apple IDs you add.

See also: iCloud Drive for another Apple ID · Google Photos: what's possible and the Takeout route · Cloud accounts