How to Download a Google Photos Album (Whole Album, Right Dates)
Download a whole Google Photos album as a zip from the website, or with Google Takeout for big albums, and keep the dates the photos were taken.
To download a Google Photos album, open it on photos.google.com on a computer, click the three dots (More options) at the top right and choose Download all. Google packs the album into a zip file named after it. For a big album, or several albums, Google Takeout is more reliable: tick Google Photos, click All photo albums included, and pick only the albums you want.
Way 1: Download all, from the website
- Open photos.google.com in a browser on a computer and sign in.
- Click Albums in the menu on the left, and open the album.
- Click the three dots at the top right.
- Click Download all.
- Wait while Google builds the zip. For a large album this takes a while, and the download starts on its own when it is ready.
- Unzip it: on Windows, right-click and Extract All; on a Mac, double-click.
This works for shared albums you can open, too. It does not work in the phone app, which only downloads single photos or a selection.
Way 2: Google Takeout, for big or many albums
- Go to takeout.google.com and click Deselect all.
- Tick Google Photos, then click the button All photo albums included under it.
- Click Deselect all in the list that opens, tick the albums you want, and click OK. Year folders like "Photos from 2019" are in this list too.
- Click Next step, choose .zip, a file size and Create export.
- Download the parts from the email within 7 days.
Takeout is slower to start, but it does not depend on one browser session staying open, and it includes a .json file with the date and place for every photo. Exporting only some albums has more on choosing albums.
Why the photos in the album have the wrong date
Open the downloaded album and sort by date. Many photos show the download day. The zip from Download all has no .json files, and the photos that carry no date inside (screenshots, chat images, scans, edited photos, anything you re-dated in Google Photos) fall back to the file date. Camera photos usually keep their date, because it is written inside the file.
With Takeout, the real dates are in the .json files, but your computer does not read those either until they are written into the photos. Album order in Google Photos is not stored anywhere in the files. See what happens to albums.
Fix the dates and keep the album folders
Takeout JSON Metadata Fixer for Windows and Mac writes the date and place from each .json into the photo and sets the file dates, so the album sorts correctly in any app. On Windows, its folder menu has Google Photos Albums, which keeps a folder per album and puts photos in no album into Year/Month folders, and Year / Album. The first 500 photos are free; Premium is $19.99 once.
For a zip from Download all, which has no .json files, the app can still sort and rename the photos by the date inside them, and you can set the date by hand for a whole folder.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a limit on how many photos Download all can handle?
Google does not publish one. Large albums take long to prepare and can fail; if that happens, use Takeout.
Can I download a shared album someone sent me?
Yes, with Download all if you can open the album. Takeout only includes photos you added to it or saved to your library.
Can I download several albums at once?
Not on the website. Use Takeout and tick the albums you want.
For the whole library, read how to download all your Google Photos.