Apple - Download folder from iCloud Drive web

No proper solution

Up today (2019-03-30), there is no practical way to download a specified folder from iCloud without synchronizing the entire drive.
The download button is grayed/disable for folders in iCloud.com.

Below there are only hacks.

The evident (and painfully) approach

You can select all the files inside the desired folder and click the download button, but since it does not include subfolders, you must patiently repeat the process for each folder in the tree.

Request Apple a copy of your data (best approach)

Go to https://privacy.apple.com/ and request to Apple a copy of your iCloud files.
Unfortunately, you cannot select which folder you want to include; you will receive a link to download the whole drive.
They say it could take a few days to receive the link. However, in my experience, it only takes a day.

You can also use this trick to download other data that Apple makes it difficult to obtain in a standard format, such as the Health App data.

The iPhone + Other-cloud solution

So, the original question request a solution "without having to sync the entire content of my iCloud Drive with my computer".
I had the same problem. I was not using iCloud Drive in my Mac but it was active (probably by default) on my iPhone.
Then, I could use the File app (the build-in App) to copy a whole folder to other cloud (Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, etc.).

  1. Ensure your other cloud is active within the File App.
    Select Edit in the top right corner to activate the available cloud platforms.

  2. Select the folder to copy from iCloud and click below in the small folder icon.

  3. Select a destination inside another cloud.
  4. Wait. It could take longer to copy from one cloud to the other
  5. Use the other cloud to download your folder.
  6. Complaint to Apple!

PS:
I notice that for a large directory structure, this method can fail to copy the whole structure.

Complaint to Apple

Meanwhile, complain to Apple about this unbelievable omission
https://www.apple.com/feedback/icloud.html


You can compress folders on iPhone Documents. Then you can download zip

Tags:

Icloud

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