photo backup to external drive options

I have been using Google Photos since when it was called Picasa. And from 2009 to May 2023, I was an Android user with the following method of backing up my photos. Note: My goal has always been to have a cloud-based backup *and* a physical external harddrive backup. 1. Photos taken on Android device backup to Google Photos in full/original quality. 2. Periodically, I would plug my Android - via cable - to my computer (Chromebook or Windows) and browse the phone like a thumbdrive, copying the photo files from my phone to an external harddrive attached to my computer. 3. In Google Photos, I would then choose to "Free up space", which delete all photos from my phone that have been backed up to Google Photos. Since May 2023, when I switched to an iPhone and Macbook, my method has been: 1. I open Google Photos on the iPhone to make sure all photos taken with my iPhone have been backed up. 2. I use Airdrop to move the photos to my macbook temporarily before moving the photos that have been Airdropped to my Macbook to my external drive and then deleting the Airdropped photos from my Macbook. 3. In Google Photos, I would then choose to "Free up space", which delete all photos from my phone that have been backed up to Google Photos. There is a slight problem with this method, however. Airdrop doesn't seem to like large amounts of photos/videos being transferred at once. There are times where it just doesn't respond, so I have to break it up into x number (haven't determined the correct number yet) of photos at a time. It feels tedious and messy, and feels like I could accidentally miss some photos. There appear to be a couple of solutions - and I have questions that I can't resolve about both of them. 1. Using the Image Capture app on the Macbook to import photos from iPhone before copying them to external drives. This seems odd, and I believe it requires that you choose a resolution. I don't want to alter the original photos/videos in any way, and I feel like using an old Image Capture app could possibly mess with the file in some way. Is this true, or do we know if there is a simple way to do this without it altering *anything* about the photo or video, including EXIF data? 2. Apple Photos. While I have some free iCloud storage, I don't use iCloud for photos storage. And I don't want to start. However, if there is a clean, safe way to *temporarily* incorporate iCloud syncing into my backup workflow, I would be open to it. If I have recently backed up all the photos from iPhone and only have 50 photos on the phone, what would happen if I were to turn on syncing photos on iCloud on my iPhone and Macbook? I understand that the 50 photos would appear on my Macbook *in the Photos app*, but they wouldn't be browsable in Finder so that I could copy them to an external drive, right? It seems that I would then have the opportunity to Export photos to my external drive. Again, would there be any downsides to this? Would the original files transfer in full resolution with original filedates and EXIF data to the external drive? Note that I would then want to delete the photos from my iPhone, which I would assume would also remove them from the Photos app on my Macbook. This whole "syncing" thing is nonintuitive for me, who is used to managing files of all types using drives and drag/drop. Am I missing a better option? Thanks.