When I was using Ubuntu, I would plug my phone into my laptop and run this small script: https://gist.github.com/wheelercj/8cce112fc8ee55fd4858847a52...

It's mainly just rsync. When the phone was plugged in, the photos were accessible at a path like "/run/user/1000/gvfs/gphoto2:host=Apple_Inc._iPhone_abc123/".

Now I use Time Machine, but I still need to check whether it includes iCloud photos.

Does this include all the image metadata and who knows what else?

While I haven't tested for that myself, the script should keep pretty much everything including image metadata. I just made a small change so that it also keeps extended attributes in case any image-related metadata is there.

The script currently requires changing one or two folder paths at the top (more details in the script).

For anyone trying this with a Pi older than the Pi 4, you might still need an SD card with one file on it: https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/raspberr...