alt Hacker NewsI can personally confirm I've downloaded an entire iCloud library at once, to a brand new Mac, using the 'Download Originals to this Mac' option. As have many others here, I would think.
That's literally what that option is for.
If it's not working for you, you might be dealing with a bug, or perhaps you haven't given it enough time to sync. If you go to Photos > Library and scroll down, it should show you the sync status.
Thanks, that was a relief because I realised I didn't see the sync status at the bottom. It appears that Monterey hides the status message at the bottom by default, and I had to pull the page down twice to see it.
Long story short, iCloud wasn't syncing photos "due to performance" and this message was hidden.
Thanks once again!