How to Keep Your Google Photos Backup Up to Date
A simple routine to keep a Google Photos backup current on a drive, NAS or PC, with Takeout every few months and only the new photos added, dates intact.
Google Photos has no "back up only what is new" button for your own drive. Takeout always exports the whole library. The way to keep a backup current is a routine: every few months, request a new Takeout, fix the dates, and add only the photos your backup does not have yet. With the right tool, the photos already there are skipped automatically, so the backup grows without duplicates.
Why there is no automatic sync
Since 31 March 2025, Google's Photos API only lets outside apps see photos those apps uploaded themselves. Tools like rclone and NAS sync apps can no longer read your library. Google Drive for desktop does not include Google Photos. That leaves Takeout.
Option 1: Takeout's scheduled export
- Go to takeout.google.com, click Deselect all, tick Google Photos, click Next step.
- Under Frequency, choose Export every 2 months for 1 year. That is six exports.
- Choose .zip, a size, and Create export.
Each export is a full copy of the library, not just the new photos, and each one comes with its own 7-day download window. It saves you remembering to ask, nothing more. After a year, set it up again.
Option 2: A manual export on a fixed date
Pick two or four dates a year, for example the first weekend of January and July, and put them in your calendar. One export, done by hand, is easier to keep track of than six automatic ones.
The routine, every time
- Request the export and download all parts.
- Fix the dates and places into the photos into the same backup folder as last time.
- Check the new photos (count, dates, a few on the map).
- Delete the zip files once the check is done.
Why the fix and the skip matter
Every Takeout contains the same old photos again. Copying it over your backup by hand gives you thousands of duplicates, or "replace or skip" questions for hours. And every new export has the same date problem as the first: screenshots, chat images and edited photos show the download day until the .json dates are written in.
Takeout JSON Metadata Fixer handles both. Point it at the new zip files and at your existing backup folder. It writes the dates and places into the photos and skips every photo whose exact copy is already in the destination, so only the new ones are added to the right Year/Month folders. Turn on Only photos from a date range to process just the months since your last backup, which is faster for large libraries. The first 500 photos are free; Premium is $19.99 once.
With exiftool you can do the same in a few steps: fix the new export (commands), then copy with a tool that skips existing files, such as robocopy /XC /XN /XO on Windows or rsync --ignore-existing on Mac and Linux. Files are matched by name, so a renamed photo is copied again.
Option 3: Catch new photos before they reach Google
For photos taken from now on, you can also copy them straight from the phone:
- Plug the phone into the computer every month and copy the new photos from
DCIM. They carry the camera's date inside. - Or use an app that backs up the phone to your own NAS, such as Synology Photos Mobile, QNAP Qfile or the Immich app.
This does not cover photos that are only in Google Photos (from old phones, shared albums or the web), so keep an occasional Takeout as well.
Check the backup once a year
- Open ten photos from different years on the backup drive.
- Check the date taken and the place.
- Plug in the second drive, if you keep one elsewhere, and update it.
Drives fail quietly. A backup you have not opened for three years is a guess.
More on choosing a drive, a NAS or a PC, and the folder layout, in Google Photos backup.