Escape Google Photos
Transfer your photos
Now that Nextcloud is installed and operational, it’s time to get your photos into it, and out of reaching distance from Google.
S
ee the three-step guide below to get an archive of your Google Photos. The archive is
organised by year and includes metadata corresponding to each image in the form of .json files. These consist of album information, descriptions and geodata that have been added via Google photos, as well as EXIF data from the original images stripped from their downloaded counterparts.
Extract the archive, taking care to ensure you have sufficient space. Note that if it’s a huge file and you’re extracting it to slow, or network, storage, it’ll take a long time to extract. So either make yourself a cup of tea or make enough space on the fastest storage you have to hand. You still have the original archive, so you can safely delete these once they’re uploaded.
Alternatively you can download images in batches (of up to 500) or by album from Google Photos without using the Takeout service. This method seems to retain the original images’ metadata. If you click the More Info button at step two below, you’ll find the option to transfer photos to Flickr or Onedrive. There are some other commercial alternatives listed in the box overleaf. But why trade one proprietary service for another when our Nextcloud container is eager to contain some photos?