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iCloud Drive and iCloud Photos: How to Transfer Files In and Out

· 5 min read · Updated

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iCloud Drive and iCloud Photos seen as two roots inside Blober

What Blober can do with iCloud

Apple publishes no API for a personal iCloud account, and there is no developer key you can request for your own Drive or Photos library. So Blober signs in on Apple's own web page, captures the validated session, and shows the account as two roots.

Root What it holds Read Write
iCloud Drive Your files and folders, with the tree preserved Yes Yes
iCloud Photos One chronological timeline of photos and videos Yes Yes

Apple lists whatever other people shared with you inside iCloud Drive, as ordinary items with a shared label. Blober checks what each share lets you do.

Photos has no folders, so there is no album browsing. Renaming a photo works, because its name is a field on the record behind it. A photo can also move between the two libraries: Blober copies the file across and deletes the original.

How the sign-in works

You sign in on Apple's own page. Click Open iCloud Login, enter your Apple ID, and complete two-factor authentication. Tick Keep me signed in before you submit the login. The screen that follows asks you to trust the device: click Trust so the session is long-lived. Wait for iCloud to finish loading, and Blober captures the validated session and closes the window. It never sees or stores your Apple ID password, and no app-specific password is needed. With Advanced Data Protection on, Apple can refuse access even when Access iCloud Data on the Web is on. China (GCBD) accounts are not supported.

Uploading into iCloud Photos

Most other tools cannot write to the Photos library. rclone's iclouddrive backend can read the library, but its docs are explicit: "iCloud Photos is read-only. Upload, delete, rename, and move operations are not supported."[1]

Blober is one of very few tools that can put new photos and videos into iCloud Photos, and the only desktop app apart from Apple's own Photos that does it.

What to expect when you upload:

  • Images keep the capture date Blober sends, so an old library is not stamped with today's date.
  • Camera raw files such as dng, cr2, arw, nef, orf and raf are skipped with a message, because the Photos library does not accept them. Apple's own upload page refuses them too ("This item's file type is not supported"). iCloud Drive takes them as ordinary files. To get them into the library, convert them to JPEG or HEIC first.
  • A new item can take a few seconds to appear in the timeline.

Moving between iCloud and other providers

iCloud works as a source and a destination, so it can sit on either side of a transfer with any other provider Blober supports: AWS S3, Azure Blob Storage, Backblaze B2, Wasabi, Cloudflare R2, Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Box, pCloud, Proton Drive, and GoPro Cloud.

Some transfers that come up often:

  • GoPro Cloud to iCloud Drive. Pull the camera library out of GoPro and into Drive as ordinary files. Drive files do not join the Photos library, so send them to the iCloud Photos root instead if you want them in the Photos app.
  • Google Photos to iCloud Photos. Move a whole Google library into Apple's timeline, with capture dates intact.
  • Proton Drive to iCloud. Both are encrypted in transit to their own servers, and Blober decrypts Proton on the way out.
  • iCloud to a NAS or a cheap bucket. Keep an offline copy of Drive and Photos in one run.

rclone can do several of these too, and it is free. Three of its limits shape the choice. Setting up the iCloud remote needs your Apple ID password and a 2FA code, and the trust token it leaves in the config is renewed every 30 days[2]. Since March 31, 2025 rclone "can only download photos it uploaded," so a pre-existing Google Photos library needs the separate gphotosdl proxy, and its shared Google Photos client ID is being retired during 2026, which means creating your own Google Cloud app[3]. Its Proton Drive backend is described as Beta, is built on a third-party bridge, covers Proton Drive files only, and generates no thumbnails[4]. Blober covers both with no setup beyond the browser login.

rclone is a command line tool driven by config files and per-job flags, without a desktop app, saved workflows, or thumbnail generation. Blober saves each transfer as a workflow you can run again with one click. Blober vs rclone goes through the differences in detail.

Limits to know before a transfer

  • Deleting from iCloud Drive moves the file to Trash. It stays recoverable for 30 days, and its space is not freed until then, so delete it from the Trash in iCloud yourself if you need the space back sooner.
  • Other people's shared folders appear in Drive and can be browsed. An item inside one can be renamed, moved, or deleted when the share allows it.
  • Sessions expire from time to time. Signing back in takes one click, and transfers pick up where they stopped.

For the limits on the Photos side, including Apple's own caps and what Blober cannot change, see iCloud Photos Limits.

Frequently asked questions

Does Blober need my Apple ID password? No. You sign in on Apple's own page, and Blober never sees your Apple ID password.

Can I upload to iCloud Photos with rclone? No. rclone's own docs state the iCloud Photos service is read-only, and that upload, delete, rename, and move are not supported[5].

Will my photos go to the Photos app or to Drive? Whichever root you choose. The iCloud Photos root puts them in the Photos timeline. The iCloud Drive root keeps them as files that do not join the Photos library.

Does Blober work with Advanced Data Protection? Not always. With Advanced Data Protection on, Apple can refuse access even when Access iCloud Data on the Web is on. Blober then shows an error that tells you to turn Advanced Data Protection off.

What happens if a video will not upload? Apple's transcoder refuses some media. Blober reports the item as skipped, and the rest of the transfer keeps going.