Photo Archive: iCloud to Mac

Photo Archive Assistant copies your iCloud / Photos library to any local folder or external drive, sorted by year and month, deduplicated by SHA256. Everything runs on your Mac. No account, no server, no analytics.

Built for the moment your iCloud storage gets uncomfortable, your Mac SSD fills up, or you just want a real archive on a drive you control — not on a subscription you might cancel.

WHAT MAKES PHOTO ARCHIVE DIFFERENT

• AUTOMATIC ICLOUD DOWNLOAD
  Photos that live only in iCloud are downloaded on demand before archiving. No "original not available on this device" surprises. PhotoKit handles the fetch the same way Photos.app does.

• YEAR / MONTH FOLDER STRUCTURE
  Files land at [destination]/YYYY/MM/. No more 47,000 photos in a single Pictures folder. Browse a year, browse a month — the way a human actually navigates an archive.

• SHA256 DEDUPLICATION
  Every file is hashed before write. Duplicates skipped. Re-run the archive next month against the same destination and only new photos copy over — no manual diff, no duplicate folders.

• INTEGRITY VERIFICATION
  Verify-integrity re-hashes archived files against the stored hash. Catches silent disk corruption, failed external-drive writes, and the kind of bit-rot that bites you five years later when you actually need the photo.

• EXTERNAL DRIVES, FIRST-CLASS
  Security-scoped bookmarks mean the app remembers your archive drive across launches. Plug in a USB SSD, archive, eject. Image Capture forgets every external drive permission you grant it.

• ALBUMS, MEDIA TYPES, DATE FILTERS
  Filter by album, by photo / video / Live Photo / screenshot, by year. Archive selectively or archive everything.

• ZERO NETWORK CALLS (BEYOND ICLOUD)
  No telemetry, no analytics, no third-party SDKs. iCloud fetches go through Apple's PhotoKit. Nothing else leaves your Mac.

WHO IS PHOTO ARCHIVE FOR?

• People at their iCloud storage limit wondering whether to keep paying or download out
• Anyone who has tried Image Capture's clunky one-folder dump and wanted real organization
• PowerPhotos users who want a focused archive tool, not a library editor
• Photographers who shoot to iPhone and need to get full-resolution originals to a NAS or external SSD
• Anyone migrating off iCloud Photos to Synology Photos, Immich, or a local-only setup

PHOTO ARCHIVE INCLUDES

• Archive to one destination at a time — every photo, every video, every Live Photo
• Automatic iCloud original download
• Year / month folder structure
• SHA256 deduplication
• Verify-integrity pass
• Albums, media-type, and year filters

PHOTO ARCHIVE PRO

One-time purchase, no subscription. Pro adds:

• Multi-destination backup — archive to your SSD and your NAS in the same run, in parallel
• CSV export of archive records and verify reports
• Out-of-app completion banners — close the feedback loop when a long run finishes while you're in another app

Family-shareable. Restorable across every Mac you sign into with the same Apple ID.

FEEDBACK

Made by Peter Zhang. Every email at obeliskclubclub@gmail.com is read personally. Found a Photos library edge case? Tell me.

Learn more: obelisk.club/photo-archive-assistant