How to copy photos from My Photo Stream and iCloud Photo Sharing in Windows?

My Photo Stream photos are automatically saved to your Windows PC, and even if you turn off Photos iCloud for Windows, these saved photos are available to you.

In order to save photos and videos from an iCloud shared stream, you must save them to another folder on your hard drive, then follow the process below:

1. Open iCloud for Windows.
   - If you have Windows 8.1 : Go to the Start screen, click the down arrow   in the lower-left corner, then click the iCloud app.
   - If you have Windows 8 : Go to the Start screen, then click the iCloud tile.
   - If you have Windows 7 : Choose Start menu -> All Programs -> iCloud -> iCloud.
2. Click the Options button next to Photos (or Photo Stream). Note the path listed under "iCloud Photos location."
3. Open a File Explorer window (Windows 8) or Windows Explorer window (Windows 7).
4. Go to the iCloud Photos folder location using the path you noted earlier. Open the Shared folder.
5. Select the photos you want to save, then copy them to another folder on your hard drive. Include this folder if you back up your computer's hard drive to another device or service.

Quick Tip to Keep your Photos Safe
Making backups of your photos & videos is a chore you probably skip, but it really doesn't have to be hard. Here's an effortless way to backup photos - PicBackMan. PicBackMan is the easiest and simplest way to keep your photos safely backed up in one or more online accounts. Simply download PicBackMan (it's free!), register your account, connect to your online store and tell PicBackMan where your photos are - PicBackMan does the rest, automatically. It bulk uploads all photos and keeps looking for new ones and uploads those too. You don't have to ever touch it.