iCloud Photos to PDF

How to get your photos out of iCloud Photos

You download the photos yourself; this page never signs in to or reads your account. On a computer, sign in to iCloud.com in your browser, open Photos, select the photos you want and use the download button. The browser saves them to your Downloads folder, as single files or as a ZIP when you pick many. On an iPhone or iPad you can also open the Photos app, select pictures and save them to the Files app, or connect the phone to a computer and import them.

Why the files are often HEIC

Recent iPhones save photos in the High Efficiency format by default, chosen under Settings, then Camera, then Formats. High Efficiency stores stills as HEIC, which is roughly half the size of a JPEG of similar quality. Whether files arrive as HEIC or JPG when copied to a computer depends on the Photos setting called Transfer to Mac or PC: Automatic converts to a compatible format, while Keep Originals copies the HEIC files as they are. Photos downloaded from iCloud.com with the unmodified originals option are usually HEIC too.

What this tool does

Photos to PDF decodes each photo on your device, including HEIC files that most browsers cannot open on their own, and places them on PDF pages in the order you set. A live preview shows how the current page will look, so you can see the effect of every setting before building the file.

Layout options

• Page size: A4, Letter, Legal, A5, 4 x 6 inches, or a page that matches each image.
• Orientation: portrait, landscape, or automatic per photo.
• Margins: none, small, medium, large, or a custom value in millimetres.
• Fit shows the whole photo, fill covers the area and crops the edges, original size uses the photo's natural size where it fits.
• One, two or four photos per page.

Ordering

Drag thumbnails into place, or use the move up and move down buttons with a keyboard. The PDF follows the order shown.

Image quality and orientation

Photos are drawn upright using their stored orientation and embedded as JPEG. To keep the PDF a sensible size, an image is never stored at more than 300 dots per inch for the space it occupies on the page, which is print quality. A 12 megapixel photo on an A4 page therefore uses fewer pixels than the original without a visible loss when printed.

Metadata

The PDF contains the pictures only. EXIF details such as capture date, camera model and GPS location are not copied, which makes the PDF safer to share.

Limits

• Up to 200 images and 100 megapixels each.
• The whole PDF is built in memory, so phones may need smaller documents.

Privacy

Your files are processed locally in your browser and are not uploaded to A2Z Tools. The tool cannot see your iCloud account and only uses the files you select.

A2Z Tools is an independent service and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Apple Inc. iCloud, iPhone and Apple are trademarks of Apple Inc.