Takeout JSON

Leaving Google Photos: the Complete Checklist

Every step from requesting the Takeout export to checking the dates in your new photo library, in order, with the mistakes that cost people photos.

Leaving Google Photos is not hard, but it has about twelve steps and the order matters. Skip one and you find out months later that 2016 is missing or every photo is dated last March. Here is the whole route, in order.

Before you request anything

  1. Decide where the photos are going. Apple Photos, an Android phone, Immich or PhotoPrism on a home server, a Synology NAS, or plain folders on a drive. Each has its own guide on this site, and the destination decides some choices later, such as whether to convert HEIC and how to handle Live Photos.
  2. Find out how much you have. In Google Photos, Settings shows your storage use. The export will be roughly that size, plus album copies, so a 200 GB library is a 200 to 250 GB export.
  3. Free up disk space. You need room for the zips, room for the unpacked files, and room for the organized result if it goes in a new place. Three times the export size is the safe number, twice is the minimum. How much disk space a Takeout needs explains where each copy lives and how to get by with less.
  4. Save what is not yours. Albums other people shared with you are not in the export. Open each one and use "Save to library" on the photos you want to keep. Partner-sharing photos are the same.

Requesting the export

  1. Go to takeout.google.com. Click "Deselect all", then tick only Google Photos. Under "All photo albums included" you can pick specific years or albums; for a full move, leave everything ticked.
  2. Choose the delivery and size. Email link is fine for most people. Pick 10 GB parts if your connection is stable, 2 GB if it drops. Very large libraries go more reliably to Dropbox or OneDrive. Google Photos export takes forever covers why and what to expect.
  3. Wait for the email. Hours for small libraries, a day or two for large ones. Do not delete anything from Google Photos yet.

Downloading

  1. Download every part into one folder within seven days. Sort by name and check the numbering has no gaps. Check that every part but the last is close to the size you chose. Re-download anything short.
  2. Unpack all parts into the same parent folder so the Takeout/Google Photos folders merge. On Windows use 7-Zip; the built-in extractor is slow with tens of thousands of files. Takeout split into many zip parts has the steps for each system.

Fixing what Takeout broke

  1. Fix the dates and GPS. This is the step people skip and regret. Every photo in the export shows the date you unzipped, because the real date is in a .json sidecar next to it, not in the photo. Screenshots, WhatsApp images, scans and anything you re-dated inside Google Photos depend entirely on that sidecar. Write the sidecar's photoTakenTime and location into each photo's EXIF and into the file's timestamps. Google Takeout photos show the wrong date explains it; the exiftool guide does it by hand.
  2. Deal with the pairs and duplicates. Live Photos come as a still plus a short clip; keep them together with the same name or drop the clips. -edited copies and (1) duplicates need a decision. Album folders contain copies of photos that are also in the year folders, so import once, not once per album. Takeout duplicates and -edited files covers this.
  3. Decide on names and folders. Renaming to 2019-07-14-1105_Paris.jpg and sorting into year and month folders makes the library readable without any app. If it is going into Apple Photos or Immich, names and folders matter less, since those apps sort by EXIF. Convert HEIC to JPG only if the destination cannot read HEIC; Windows and older Android galleries often cannot.

Moving in

  1. Import or copy to the destination. Apple Photos wants the files with EXIF dates and Live Photo pairs side by side. Immich and PhotoPrism can read the .json sidecars as well as EXIF. A phone or USB stick wants a DCIM folder. The per-destination guides have the details.
  2. Check before you trust it. Pick ten photos from different years, one screenshot, one WhatsApp image, one video, one Live Photo, and one photo you know you re-dated inside Google Photos. Find each in the new library and confirm the date and, where it had one, the place. If any of them is wrong, go back to step 10 while you still have the zips.

Only then, letting go

  1. Keep the zips for a month. They are the only copy that still has every sidecar. Once the new library has been in use for a while and nothing is missing, delete them.
  2. Turn off backup on your phone. In the Google Photos app, settings, Backup, switch it off. Otherwise new photos keep going to Google and you have two libraries again.
  3. Delete from Google when you are ready. Deleted photos sit in Google Photos trash for 60 days and then go for good. If you keep the Google account for mail, this frees the storage. If you are closing the account, download everything else you want first; Takeout does mail, contacts and Drive too.

The app

Takeout JSON Metadata Fixer covers steps 9 through 12 in one run.

Select the zips. It checks that no part is missing and that the disk has room, unpacks, matches every photo to its sidecar and writes the real date and GPS into the file. Live Photo pairs stay together, album duplicates are written once, HEIC can become JPG, and you choose a naming and folder template or keep everything as it is. It can write to a folder, straight to a USB stick or to an Android phone, or leave .json sidecars for Immich and PhotoPrism.

Dry run shows the plan first. It runs offline on macOS, Windows and Linux. Free for 500 photos, $9.99 once for unlimited. Free alternatives are exiftool and GooglePhotosTakeoutHelper, both command-line.

Frequently asked questions

How long does the whole process take?

A weekend for a large library, most of it waiting: a day for Google to build the export, a few hours to download, an hour or two to fix and organize, and an evening of checking. A small library is an afternoon.

Do I lose quality?

No. Takeout returns what Google stored. If your account used "Storage saver", the photos were compressed when uploaded and you get the compressed version. Original quality uploads come back as they were.

What about photo descriptions, favourites and album names?

They are in the sidecars and the album metadata.json files. EXIF has a description field and most tools write the Takeout description into it. Favourites and album membership need a destination that reads sidecars, such as Immich, or a manual re-sort.

Can I do this in stages, one year at a time?

Yes. Request an export of one year, process it, import it, check it, then do the next. It is slower overall but each step is small enough to recover from.

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