[Fixed] Videos not Downloading from iCloud to iPhone

It’s convenient and time-saving to backup videos to iCloud. If you want to watch or edit an iCloud video using iMovie or any other apps on another iPhone, you just need to tap its thumbnails in the Photos app and wait for it to download.

While things sometimes will go wrong. The downloading process may take too long or stuck on the 100% complete. What’s worse, during the downloads, you may receive an error message, “Cannot Download Video. There was an error downloading this video from your iCloud Photo Library. Please try again later.”

Luckily, the issue is not a big deal. This guide will explain to you why videos are not downloading from iCloud as well as the solutions to help you out.

Why are videos not downloading from iCloud to iPhone?

Many aspects and wrong settings can result in videos not downloading from iCloud to iPhone. And here are some main reasons for the error.

• Unstable Internet connection. A stable network connection is a prerequisite for the download task. A poor network connection always gets the download showed down and even stopped.
• iPhone storage is almost full. Videos can take up much space on your iPhone. If your iPhone storage is full, you cannot download videos successfully.
• Wrong settings. You may set up the iCloud backup or any related settings improperly so that videos are not downloading.

Besides, any software glitches can also cause the issue. What you need to do is to check them one after another with the instructions in the next part to get the videos downloaded to your iPhone last.

5 fixes to videos not downloading from iCloud to iPhone

The solutions below are nice tries to troubleshoot the issue videos are not downloading from iCloud to iPhone. If needed, the next part gives you an alternative way to download iCloud videos to iPhone.

Check iPhone storage space

If you want to download videos from iCloud to iPhone, you have to make sure you have enough storage space left on your iPhone.

To check your iPhone storage space, you can go to Settings > General > iPhone Storage to check whether your iPhone storage is full. If it is, you may need this guide: iPhone storage full, to free up some space on your iPhone. And try to download videos from iCloud to iPhone again.

Disable Low Power Mode

Make sure you haven’t enabled Low Power Mode on your iPhone. If your iPhone is in low power mode, some functions will be not available temporarily, which may lead to videos not downloading to iPhone.

If the Low Power Mode is enabled, just head to Settings > Battery to toggle it off and try again.

Check Internet connection

The download process requires a stable Internet connection on iPhone. If you find photos and videos not downloading from iCloud, it may result from internet connectivity issues.

Go to the Safari app and open a web browser to check if your Wi-Fi works properly. If it doesn’t, you may need to reset network settings. 

To reset network settings, please head to Settings > General > (Transfer or Reset iPhone for iOS 15 and later >) Reset > Reset Network Settings. Enter your password to make it.

Toggle off Optimize iPhone Storage

If you have enabled the function Optimize iPhone Storage within iCloud Photo to save limited iPhone storage space, you can save photos and videos on iPhone in a smaller size, but you cannot download the full-resolution videos on your iPhone at the same time.

To download full-resolution videos from iCloud to iPhones, you need to switch the settings to Download and Keep Originals. Turn on Settings on your iPhone > Tap [your name] > Select iCloud > Photos > Choose Download and Keep Originals instead.

Sign out & in iCloud account

Chances are that some software glitches make your iCloud unavailable for a moment, you can try to sign out your iCloud account and sign in again to refresh its service.

Go to the Settings > [your name] > Scroll down the screen, locate and tap Sign Out. Wait for minutes and sign in again to get iCloud videos downloaded to your iPhone. 

Bonus: How to transfer iCloud videos from PC to iPhone

If the videos are still not downloaded on your iPhone, then, you may need to try another way to get iCloud videos to your iPhone. The iCloud client for Windows and the transfer software can give you a hand. 

Step 1. Download iCloud videos to PC via iCloud client

The tool - iCloud for Windows enables you to access iCloud Photos on your Windows PC, as well as download iCloud photos and videos to computer. Follow to steps below to download iCloud videos to PC first.

1. Download, install and open iCloud for Windows on your computer > Sign in with your Apple ID.

2. Next to Photos, click Options > Select iCloud Photos > Click Done > Then, click Apply.

3. Open File Explorer on your computer > In the navigation pane, locate and click iCloud Photos.

4. Select the videos you want to keep > Right-click the selection and choose Always keep on this device.

When the videos have been downloaded from iCloud to computer, it’s time to transfer them to your iPhone.

Step 2. Transfer videos from PC to iPhone

To transfer videos from computer to iPhone, you can rely on the professional iOS data transfer tool called - FoneTool. With simple design and operations, you can finish the transfer task in a short time.

What you can also benefit from FoneTool:
No data loss. The transfer process doesn’t erase anything. Furthermore, the quality of the transferred videos will not be degraded.
Offline transfer process. Without any influence of network, the tool provides you with an offline transfer process, helping you transfer videos from computer to iPhone with no error.
Multiple transfer functions. Beside computer to iPhone transfer, you can also transfer files from iPhone to computer, from iPhone to iPhone, which means, you can rely on it to transfer videos from iPhone to iPhone directly without downloading from iCloud.
Wide compatibility. Besides iPhone, FoneTool is also perfectly compatible with iPad and iPod.

Get the tool on your computer, and follow the three steps to transfer iCloud videos to your iPhone.

1. Connect your iPhone to computer > Open FoneTool and click Phone Transfer on its main interface. Move the cursor to PC to iPhone. Click Start Transfer.

2. Click the folder icon to locate and open iCloud videos from the local folder on your computer. You can also drag and drop wanted videos to the box.

3. Make sure you’ve added all the wanted videos >  Click Start Transfer to begin the task.

When it is over, unplug your iPhone, and you can check the videos in the app. FoneTool is also a nice tool for backing up iPhone to PC. Different from iCloud, you can get almost unlimited space to save your important files and restore them without effort.

Conclusion

Hope the fixes in this guide can help you when videos are not downloading from iCloud. The troubleshooting process does cost much time. Therefore, you can try the alternative way mentioned in this guide to download iCloud videos on computer and transfer them to iPhone. If this guide helps you, please share it with others.