Takeout JSON
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What Is the Point of Google Takeout?

What is the point of Google Takeout? It gives you a copy of your Google data to keep, back up, or move to another service. What you get for Photos.

The point of Google Takeout is to give you a complete copy of your Google data as files you own. You use it to keep a backup outside Google, to move to another service such as iCloud, Immich or a NAS, or to move data to another Google account.

Takeout only copies. Your Google account stays exactly as it is, so you can export as often as you like.

What Takeout does

Takeout is Google's export page at takeout.google.com. You choose which Google products to include, for example Google Photos, Gmail, Drive, Contacts, Calendar or YouTube. Then you choose a file type (zip or tgz), a part size (1, 2, 4, 10 or 50 GB), and where the archive goes: a download link by email, or Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive or Box.

Google then prepares the archive. This takes from a few hours to several days, depending on how much data you export. How long does Google Takeout take? explains the wait. When the export is ready, you get an email and the download links work for 7 days.

You can also schedule an export every 2 months for one year. Each scheduled export is a complete new copy, not only the new items.

Why people use it

1. To keep a backup outside Google

A library in Google Photos is not a backup. If your account is locked, hacked, or deleted by mistake, the photos go with it. A Takeout export on an external drive is a second copy that does not depend on your account.

2. To leave Google Photos

Takeout is the only way to get your whole Google Photos library out in one step. People use it to move to:

  • Apple Photos and iCloud, for example after they buy an iPhone. How do I move Google Photos to iCloud and keep the dates? shows the steps.
  • Immich, PhotoPrism or Nextcloud, self-hosted photo apps on their own server.
  • A Synology or other NAS at home.
  • A plain folder structure on a computer or an external drive, sorted by year and month.

3. To stop paying for storage

When Google storage is full, some people export their oldest photos and videos, keep them on a local drive, and then delete them from Google Photos to free space. The order matters here; see the section below.

4. To move to another Google account

Google has no button that moves a photo library from one account to another. Takeout from the old account, followed by an upload to the new one, is the usual method. How do I move Google Photos to another Google account? covers the details.

5. To see what Google has stored

Some people use Takeout only to see their data: location history, search history, YouTube history. The export shows everything that is attached to the account in files you can read.

What you get for Google Photos

For Google Photos, the export contains:

  • Your photos and videos as the files you uploaded, in their upload quality.
  • Folders for your albums, and folders called "Photos from 2019", "Photos from 2020" and so on for the photos in no album.
  • One .json file next to most photos. These "sidecar" files hold the date taken, the GPS location, the caption, the people names and other information from Google's database. From 2024 they have names like IMG_1234.jpg.supplemental-metadata.json.
  • Extra copies of some photos: an -edited version of each photo you edited in Google Photos, and a second copy of a photo when it is in an album and also in a year folder.
  • Live Photos and Motion Photos as two separate files, a still image and a short video.

Why the dates need fixing afterwards

This is the part that surprises most people. When you open the exported photos on a computer, many of them show today's date, or the date you downloaded them.

The reason: Google Photos stores the date taken, the place and the caption in its own database. Takeout puts that information into the .json files and not back into the photos. Photos from a camera usually still have their original date inside. But screenshots, images from WhatsApp and other chat apps, scanned photos, and photos you edited in Google Photos often have no date inside the file. Every photo app then sorts them by the file date, which is the download date.

So the export is complete, but the information is in two places. To get a normal library, you must write the information from each .json file into its photo before you import the photos anywhere. supplemental-metadata.json explained shows what each file holds.

Takeout JSON Metadata Fixer does this on Mac, Windows and Linux. It reads the zip files or the unzipped folders, writes the real date taken, the GPS location and the captions into each photo, sets the file dates, and can rename the photos and sort them into year and month folders. The first 500 photos are free. After that, Premium is a one-time payment of $19.99.

Delete from Google only after the export is fixed

Takeout never deletes anything. If your goal is to free space or leave Google, you delete the photos yourself afterwards. Do it in this order:

  1. Download every part of the export, and check that each one opens.
  2. Fix the dates and places from the .json files.
  3. Check photos from different years, and compare the count with your library.
  4. Make a second backup on another disk.
  5. Then delete in Google Photos.

Does using Google Takeout delete data? explains each step.

Frequently asked questions

Is Google Takeout free?

Yes. Takeout itself costs nothing. If you deliver the export to Google Drive or another cloud service, the archive uses your storage there.

Does Google Takeout remove my photos from Google?

No. It makes a copy. Your photos stay in Google Photos until you delete them yourself.

Do I need Google Takeout to download my photos?

For a few photos, no: you can select them in Google Photos and download them. For a whole library, Takeout is the practical way. A direct download of thousands of photos from the Google Photos website is slow and limited.

What are the .json files in my Takeout?

They hold each photo's date taken, location and caption. Keep them until that information is written into the photos. Can I delete JSON files from Google Takeout? explains when it is safe.

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