Starting June 1, new photos and videos you upload to Google Photos will count against your Google Account. Your storage space can quickly fill up, after which you have to pay for more space or delete photos. Do you want to stop using Google Photos? You can, and in this manual we explain how.
In this article, we explain how to download all or part of your Google Photos from Google’s servers to your own computer. This is useful if you want to leave the service.
Tip 01: Google Takeout
If you want to download your Google Photos, the best way to do it is through Google Takeout. This special service works more efficiently than the Google Photos website. Nevertheless, we still get the feeling that Takeout is deliberately making it difficult for you to leave Google Photos in a user-friendly way. There is a good chance that during this step-by-step plan you will sigh a few times at the strange choices of the service. First, go to takeout.google.com and sign in with your Google account if necessary. You will see that all services are checked by default. This is not necessary in this case, so press Deselect all items and scroll down until you see Google Photos see. Check it and click on All included photo albums. You can now indicate whether you want to download all your albums or if not, which ones not. Depending on what’s in your Recycle Bin and Archive, it may pay off to omit those folders. When you’re out, press at the bottom of the screen OK. Now scroll all the way down and press Next step.
Tip 02: Export
Google will now ask you how you want to download your photos and videos. Pay attention, because there is an important catch. Choose at Frequency first whether you want to download your media once or whether you want an export every two months for a year. We opt for the former. Then choose the file type: .zip or .tgz. .Zip is recommended if you want to extract your media for viewing or uploading to another service. .Tgz is a better option if you just want to download your media to store it on your external hard drive. We choose the .zip option and select the largest option of 50 GB for the file size. Because if you choose the 2 GB folder and you want to download a video larger than 2 GB, Google will skip this video and you will not receive a message. Very clumsy.
With a 50 GB folder, you are very unlikely to run into this problem. Large folders will take longer to download, but you will have to do less. When you’re out, press Create export and you will be notified that Google is making a copy. Do you want to download your photos and videos because you want to upload them to a competing online storage service? Then click on Send download link via email on the arrow and choose your favorite service. You can choose from Dropbox, OneDrive, Box or Google’s own Drive (where your media counts towards your storage space).
Tip 03: Download
Google will now download your data from its photo service and send you an email when the download is complete. Click the link in the email or go to takeout.google.com again and you’ll see Your latest export stand. Press To download and log in if necessary. The download will now start automatically. It doesn’t matter where you save the .zip, as long as you remember the location. If your download covers more than one folder, you must download all folders individually. A check mark in front of the Download button indicates that you have a folder download. Wait for all folders to be downloaded.
Tip 04: One folder (Windows)
The most important part is now over. Your data is safe on your computer. Now it is time to change the individual folders into one folder. Again, not a fun job, especially if you have dozens of folders. We start this step for Windows users. If you’re on a Mac, you can skip to the next step. As a Windows user, it is advisable to start a program like 7-Zip (free). Navigate to the location where you downloaded the Google Takeout folders. Double click on the top folder. It opens and bears the name Takeout. Open this folder and you will find a Google Photos folder which again contains random albums. Now open a new one Explorerwindow and place it next to the 7-Zip window. Create a new empty folder and drag the Takeout folder in 7-Zip to it Explorer window. 7-Zip extracts the folder and your computer copies the contents to the empty folder. If this is successful, do the same with the other folders. Since the folders have the same name, Windows will ask if you want to merge the folders. Press Yes and if possible on the check mark Do this for all items. When you have copied all the folders, go to step seven.
Tip 05: One folder (macOS)
macOS users beware: extracting .zip files is different than on Windows. macOS does not open a new window but extracts a file directly into the same folder, and we don’t want that. It is therefore recommended that after downloading the Google Takeout folders, you create a new, empty folder (for example called Takeout 2) and move all .zip files to that folder. Then open that folder and double click on a file. macOS now unpacks it. Do this for all folders. If you have many and large folders, this work can take a while.
macOS users beware: extracting .zip files is different than on Windows
Tip 06: Merge folders (macOS)
If this is successful, you will merge the folders into one folder with all your photos and videos. Pay attention, because if you do not do this correctly, you will only copy your files and that is a waste of the storage space on your computer or hard drive. Open the Takeout 2 folder, select the Google Photos folder and copy it with the right mouse button. Now go to the original Takeout folder and paste the Google Photos folder in this folder.
Your Mac will now ask if you want to Cancel, Replace, or To merge. Choose the latter option. Do this for all Google Photos folders. If you want, you can delete the copy after merging a folder. This way you better remember which folders you have already done and you prevent duplicate files from taking up valuable space on your computer or hard drive. When you’re done, you can move on to step seven. This again applies to Windows and macOS users.
Tip 07: Organize photos
Now that you’ve made one folder of all kinds of folders, you have all your Google Photos (including videos) in one place. Very handy, until you want to view them. The photos are randomly mixed up, so that is of little use to you. Developer Robbie Antenesse was so upset about this that he wrote a free program that organizes your photos and videos by year and month. Good to know: the program only supports .zip files. You download the program via here for Windows, macOS and Linux. Install and open the program and follow the four simple instructions that guide you in organizing the media. Depending on your amount of photos and videos, this can take a while. It is advisable to use the slider Re-Insert Available Exif Metadata from No. to Yes because then you keep the original metadata of the photos and videos.
It is of course also possible to upload the photos to another online storage service
Tip 08: Next steps
Now that you’ve downloaded and organized your Google photos and videos, you’re no longer dependent on Google Photos. You can delete the zip files from your computer (and clean up your storage space) and optionally backup the media to your external hard drive, NAS or other storage medium. It is of course also possible to upload the photos to another online storage service. The steps differ per service. Does a switch to another service seem like something to you, but you don’t have a party in mind yet? Then check out our article on the four best alternatives to Google Photos.
