I previously used USB or SFTP apps, but neither is as convenient.

On plug-in you'll have to hit the Trust button on the iOS device.

There has been a weird bug for a while, if you see "afc://badcafe:3" in the location bar, remove the ":3" at the end to see a proper view of the DCIM folder.

Checkout icloud_photos_downloader[1], they have a docker container that is drop-dead simple to use.

I run this[3] about once a month, I could probably automate it, but that feel like it'll take more time than it'll save[2].

[1] https://github.com/icloud-photos-downloader/icloud_photos_do...

[2] https://xkcd.com/1319/

[3]

  #!/bin/bash
  mkdir "$(pwd)"/{photos,cookies} 2> /dev/null

  if [[ -z "${ICLOUD_PASSWORD}" ]]; then
      exit 1
  fi
  
  podman container run -it --rm --name icloud \
      -v $(pwd)/photos:/data \
      -v $(pwd)/cookies:/cookies \
      -e TZ=America/Boise \
      icloudpd/icloudpd:latest \
      icloudpd --directory /data \
      --cookie-directory /cookies \
      --folder-structure {:%Y/%Y-%m-%d} \
      --username mysuperduper@username.com \
      --password "${ICLOUD_PASSWORD}" \
      --size original