HOW TO FIX YOUR GOOGLE PHOTOS STORAGE PROBLEM: ruclips.net/video/R_f1em_7mjU/видео.html HOW TO FIX GOOGLE PHOTOS STORAGE PROBLEM FOREVER with these tips: ruclips.net/video/P61Su8sa_2c/видео.html HOW TO OPEN GOOGLE PHOTOS: photos.google.com HOW TO OPEN GOOGLE TAKEOUT: takeout.google.com If this video helps, LEAVE A COMMENT below to say hi - I'd love to hear from you. You can also help me by clicking THUMBS UP or get to 10,000 subscribers CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO MY CHANNEL thanks! youtube.com/@neilmossey?sub_confirmation=1
Hi I may have lost some film and photos.. in the download. Using a Chromebook and a notification comes up unconfirmed download not supported, Have I lost all the ones that state this?
Thank you! I wasted hours trying to download 500 pics at a time from Google! This method was so quick and easy. I downloaded 1 year at a time onto my external hard-drive. You saved my mental sanity!
I have a feeling its not wanting to deal with the massive amount of bandwidth necessary to handle many people downloading all files at the the same time.
Brilliant video. I went to copy photos from my Pixel 7 to my computer and found they weren't there. I had been looking at them and didn't realise they were uploaded and not physically on my phone. Downloaded straight away....thanks for a great video.
Thanks for the kind comment Sarah. The Google Takeout does strip the photos of metadata (like time and date) though Another way to do it is to put the photos you want into an album and download that album - it's a bit longer but all the information is downloaded. Good luck with your Google Photos!
This is just what I didn't know I needed!! I was downloading all of my photos and videos the first way you showed and it took so long. Can't wait to try this more efficient way of downloading everything to an external hard drive. Thank you!
Good one Neil !!! So many RUclipsrs try to explain TakeOut & they drone-on for so long BUT your RUclips is clear and specific on how to do it in one short video.
Thank you for the informative video! I used to work in the tech industry, and it's literally beside me how simple tasks such as downloading your photos can be so difficult. Great video and thank you for the help.
thanks , I did get the downloads but can't open or extract the files..the actual pics. MS is asking for an app to open the "CRDOWNLOAD" file. What should I use? Presume now I need to download something from the MS App Store to actually open these files to see the pics? Thanks, D
Hi Dennis Thanks for the question -- I think the file that is downloaded should be named something like Takeout, rather than CRDOWNLOAD and the filename should end with .zip I think the file you have might not be fully downloaded. It would be worth fully downloading again, and make sure you have enough space on your drive to download it. If the file name ends with .zip you should be able to right click on it and choose "Extract all" where it will extract everything into the folder that you need. Hope this helps.
.crdownload is the file extension Google Chrome uses for downloads while they are in the process of downloading. Upon completion it will have the correct extension. Your file is either not fully downloaded or the download has failed.
Hi Cleo - thanks for the kind question. Google Drive strips out all of the metadata - all the extra information attached to a photo file - and puts it into the .json file of the same name. I don't use these, but some people use them. Hope this helps!
Hi Neil, quick question, I did all this and now trying to open photos and videos on my computer, some files are JSON and Windows media player files that I can't open.... What can I do to open them?
@@himi8788 hi thanks for the kind question-- the .Json files are the metadata for the photos - if you need the metadata to stay with the picture file, mass download them as folders - put the pictures into one big folder and download that folder. For the videos - sorry about this, it seems that Google has given the videos a dumb format now- I convert them by uploading to RUclips then downloading from RUclips Studio, but there are easier walkthroughs online for converting them Hope this helps!
Hello Neil, hope you are keeping well. Would you please be so kind to let me know why when I download the pics and extract them I cannot open them, they seems to be in json format. Thanks
Mate! A thousand thanks! This has been popping up recently, and frankly I didn't even know google was backing up ALL my photos and videos! Of course, Google websites are completely USELESS in solving this issue- and you did in only a couple of minutes! I owe you a serious pint! 💪😅🍻
That's really great to hear David, thanks for taking the time to leave this kind comment. It does strip the metadata from the photo files, so the other way to do it is to put everything you want into an album and download the album, but that takes ages. Good luck with your Google Storage and thanks again!
i downloaded the takeout but a few of the files have only come up in .json format and not .jpeg. is there any way to ensure that all my files get downloaded in the .jpeg format too?
Thanks for the kind question - this is a big downside with this method. As you may know the json files are files with the metadata for the photos (type of camera, exposure details etc) I think the only other way to do this is to put the photos into large albums and downloading the albums, where the json file information is kept inside the jpegs. It takes longer but it keeps the information together. Hope this helps and thanks again.
thanks for the information. I have downloaded the zipped files, but after unzipping, many files are in .json format and not viewable. Is there any way to open them?
Hi @CarrotAuntie - thanks for the kind question - I believe the .json files contain the metadata for each photo and video. If you right click on the file name, and choose the "Open with" option, then open using your web browser, so something like Chrome or Safari. Hope this helps!
Hi, thanks for the kind question @albertagius5267 It seems that Google strips out all the date information in the photo files into separate .json files. So you can delete them: I think some people need that information and try to combine them back with the photos but I've not bothered with that. Hope this helps!
It'll export them in 50 gig chunks meaning, if you wanted to export all 500G worth of images, you'll have ten 50G ZIP files instead of one large 500G file. Reading is fundamental 😉👌🏾
3:13 Would I still be able to get the mail even if I have the "Can't send or receive emails You don't have enough storage. Get more storage, or delete items from Google Photos, Drive or Gmail." Error?
Hi Neil, thanks for the video. Is it possible to also extract the date and time of the photos? Unfortunately this information got lost during the download. Thanks for your support!
Tysm! But question, when doing this, does it restore the date/time the picture had when it was in google photos? For example, i have a picture from 2019 in Google photos. I want to download that to my gallery while also keeping that time and date.
Hi thanks for the kind question - forgive me, I think Google strips out the data using this method. If you want to keep the data with the picture file, it's best to download the picture individually from Google Photos. Hope this helps.
Hi @Neilmossey Thanks for making this video. This may be a silly question, and I don't see that anyone else in the comments has asked it, but when I followed your method, Google seems to have separated all my photos and saved them in a bunch of separate takeout folders, so I have multiple folders with the same name, but each folder contains different files, some .jpg and some .json. Is there an easy way to determine that all my photos have been exported, without me manually having to go through every single folder?
Hi thanks for the kind question - the smaller size zip means that you'll get the same files downloaded, but in more folders - the zip is the size of the chunks to download the same data. Hope this makes sense. Good luck with your download!
Hi Thomas thanks for the kind question. If they are not opening when you double click on them, it might be because the folder that is downloaded is 'zipped'. You you might already know this but you can unzip the folder by right-clicking on the folder and choosing unzip. Hope this might help
Thanks-you so much. I was stressing clicking each individual photo, just for it to unselect and having to start over again. This video has definitely been absolutely amazing. Very grateful, thank-you very much.
00:05 Download all photos and videos from Google Photos 00:38 The problem with downloading photos from Google Photos 01:10 Google Photos page needs a menu button with options 01:42 Google Takeout allows users to download all the data Google has on them 02:12 Export all photos from Google Photos with selected formats 02:43 Exporting data as a zip file and receiving download link via email. 03:13 Download Google data in just one minute. 03:42 Reduce the size of photos and videos in Google photos
Hi @darkoak-varnish6404 really appreciate the kind question. Yes! It's what I used to backup before removing things to bring it back down under 15GB Hope this helps! You can download by album as well, so you could put everything into a single album and download that. Hope this helps and good luck with your storage!
Hey Neil, Do you know if it is possible to download the photos directly to an external hard drive? Or must one download them to your computer first? My computer storage is full also, so that is why i'm asking. Thanks!
I followed these steps but when I unzip the file and click on the folder I just get taken back to the previous folder. It's most strange, the zip file shows data but the unzipped file doesn't. What am I doing wrong?
That is strange. Sorry you're experiencing this. I don't know your computer setup, but is it possible to save to desktop. and make sure it unzips into a different folder on the desktop so it doesn't unzip it into itself. That's all I can think of, sorry. Good luck!
@@neilmossey - thanks for getting back to me. I wonder if everything just took a super long time to extract as when I went back yesterday low and behold there were files. Many of them are JSON files rather than JPEG. Do I need to convert these? I can't view them when I try to open them but from doing a little research it seems that these files might just contain data relating to the photos and not the photos themselves.
How do put all the downloaded photos back on your phone? After i gave in and added more google storage it took all my photos off my phone . I want them back.
As when we click export. it shows it takes days and hours to complete. should our system be turned on for it to complete? can you help me on this Neil.
Hi, sorry for the delay in replying - you might have seen now that you don't need to keep that window open. It prepares the files for export on Google's side, so you can leave the page and come back later. They send an email to let you know when it is ready. Hope this helps and thanks again for the kind question.
Hi Julie I'm not sure if this can be done on a smart phone because the download is a zip file and I don't know how a phone can unzip files. Maybe there's an app for that. To get as far as downloading the zip file, I would go to takeout.google.com in my phone's web browser (eg Safari or Chrome) and follow the instructions on the video. Then if it were me, I would look up how to unzip files on a smart phone. Hope this helps!
This was super helpful but most of my images downloaded as either .json or .jpg.json files and none of them can be opened. Does anyone know why this is? Im afraid to delete everything from google photos before I know I have all my pics.
For me i seach to empty my phone to photos/videos but keep it in my cloud Google Photo. I'd like to have an option that only send photos/videos to Google Photo but only that. Like i use a external disk but in the cloud. Then when i delete a photo to my phone nothing happen into my cloud. Is it possible ?
If we are completely out of storage and cant send or recieve emails can we give a different email address to send the zip file to? Or download the zip file directly to computer?
Hi thanks for the kind question Yes - you can go directly to takeout.google.com from the computer to download there. Takeout shows you the status of your download - if it's ready to download yet. Hope this helps and good luck with your Google Storage!
Hello, have you already tried it? I am considering to upgrade my Google One Sub from 200GB to 2TB but don ´t know if I will still be able to save all of the pictures after upgrading it. Sorry for my English and greetings from Europe!
My issue is that my albums get transferred, but I'm missing photos from each one. One album had five photos and I got one. One album had 25 photos and I only got 10. Do you have any experience with this type of problem? I have started downloading my albums one by one and I guess I'll go by year after that but I'm having to count them to make sure I get them all.
Thanks for the kind comment Kay - so these are albums within the Google Takeout download? This is really strange. Downloading the albums - if I've understood correctly - looks like a good idea, because the album downloads include all the metadata... but that's not helpful if it's not including all the photos! Hope you manage to find a fix and thanks again.
Hi Neil, thanks so much for your video with clear instructions and for sharing the website. Just wondering if you can shed some light on my circumstance, I received the email up to 35 minutes after requesting the photos and vids via the 10GB option then it said mine is 31.02GB but, my storage is 15GB on my Google account, I went through this process on my laptop so I'm unsure why it has so much over, I have over 30GBs of photos and vids on my phone that backs up to Google but, I'm unsure if it was trying to transfer excess but, my Google account isn't over 15GB so I'm puzzled. Can you clarify what's going on here? I thought I'd try download them all at once and it crashed and failed to download, so I'll try download it by having it at the default 2GB as recommended then try download them 1 at a time to be more manageable for the system. Also, just a question, when you download the content, it has the download date, but, does it still have the original date photos and videos were taken in the properties of the image? I hope so...
Hi Hautai Thanks for the kind comment and questions. The total download might be over 15GB if the photos and videos are stored at Storage Saver quality - happily the download gives us the photos and videos at Original quality - so this might explain the difference? Downloading 15x 2GB doesn't sound like fun though - hope you're able to download in larger chunks. Also - I should have mentioned this in the video, but the downloads separate the metadata in the properties into separate files. I don't know why because it's really unhelpful. If you want to download and keep the properties in the file, we have to download them directly from the Google Photos site. One way to do this a bit more quickly is to put the photos into albums and download the album one album at a time. I hear this keeps the properties intact. Hope this helps and good luck with your downloads!
I've had to download 5 x 50gb takeouts. Now I need to merge them back together into 1 folder. How do I do that? Also How do we get rid of all these JSON files?
Thanks for the kind question, and sorry to hear about this. There might be folders which are backed up elsewhere in Google Drive folders, but I'm sure you've checked everything downloaded. Google strips out the metadata from the photos into .json files, so those files just contain data. If you'd like to keep everything together, you could select all photos into very large albums in Google Photos and download the albums instead. It's more time consuming but more thorough. Hope this helps and good luck with your Google Photos storage!
I downloaded to my macbook backup LACIE but on the top right of my Macbook it states in red, "Permissions required" so it didn't download to Lacie. In chrome download history "failed - insufficient permissions" . How do I proceed? I am so happy to have found your RUclips Neil . Thank You!
Hi @gelandersen thanks for the kind question: yes, it does! You don't have to do anything extra, the videos are just there in the download folder. Hope this helps. Good luck with your download!
@@gelandersen If you have them backed up to a hard drive or memory stick or storage card (or both!) you can delete... Be aware that this download is of all the photos but Google has removed the date information from the picture and video files... If you're feeling brave, you could even set up a google account just for your photos, and use partner sharing to share your google photos over to that photos account so that you don't lose them! The shared photos do not take up quota in the shared account so it's a good way of backing them up. Make sure auto save is switched on, so that when you delete from the original account, they'll stay undeleted in the partner shared account - I'm sure you dont want or need to see another one of my videos but I show how I do it in this very long video here ruclips.net/video/5G_N4AnLMiM/видео.html Good luck with your Google photos!
Hi Harshada - I've got you covered! Follow the steps in this playlist - if it's Google Photos try the photos video, if it's Gmail follow the Gmail video. ruclips.net/video/5G_N4AnLMiM/видео.html Good luck with your storage and thanks for your kind question.
sir !!! nice , pls guide what to do further , i have down load all photo so what next step ? as after down load still space not arranged , do i need to delete from gmail ? after down load to lap top ?
Hi Chris, thanks for the kind question - you might have discovered this already but just in case, right click on the download folder and unzip them. Forgive me I don't know what system you're on but hope you can find an unzip app that's already part of your system.
This is a nice way to download all the photos. But it frustrates me that you don't get back the date of the time you took the photo. Behind every photo you download is the time and date of the download. ...today at 8:45 for example. do you know a solution for this.
Hi thanks for the kind question - I'm so sorry to hear this. My photos are originally named by the phone with the date and time so I didn't notice this but can see that on mine it has all the metadata - phone, dimensions and even focal length - but not the date and time data. All of this information seems to be in the .json file which has the same file name and the .json suffix. I don't know how to reunify the json data with the photo or video file I'm afraid, so the data is there but frustratingly not in the original picture file. I really hope you find a workaround for this and sorry I can't be of more help. Thanks again.
Thank you for this input. I haven't tried it yet, but will shortly. Like you, I am out of space with Google, and refuse to pay for more. I want to download about half of my photos which go back many years. I would like to put them on a portable hard drive and run slide shows of them all. Is this possible? Can they go directly to the hard drive instead of a computer? Would they have to be extracted from zip form before a slide show would run? Also, I don't need all of the meta data, is there a way to avoid it?
Hi Sharon Thanks for your kind message and question. It is possible to do this, but I think it's only possible to download everything first and then choose what you need for the slide shows. My download of everything was quite manageable, and yes you can choose to download directly to the hard drive or memory stick. Once it is downloaded, just right click on the download to select 'unzip' which creates the new unzipped folder and you can then delete the original downloaded zipped folder. The metadata will be in separate folders - the file size of those is tiny and can just be deleted - just delete everything except your folder of photos & videos. Hope I've understood the question correctly and not suggesting things you already know. Thanks again and good luck!
@@neilmossey Oh my Gosh!! Thank you so much. I really didn't expect a reply, but one can always hope!! I'm printing out your reply, so I can have a quick and easy record of your advice. You've been a tremendous help. Thank you again!
I thought this would work great, but then all of my videos and pictures were sent over as a JSON file onto the external hard drive and now I cannot open any pictures. How can this be fixed?
Hi Jeanine, thanks for the kind comment and question. The JSON files are the metadata for the photos as separate files. There should be a folder with jpegs in, with similar file names but ending in Jpeg Can you see those files? There's a chance that only json files were selected for the download, but unlikely - and if that's the case it would be easy to use takeout.google.com to create another download with the jpegs selected. Hope this helps - they exist if you can see the Json files. Fingers crossed and thanks again
Thank you. Just found your video and now waiting for photos to download. Have selected 10gb as suggested but what happens if photos are more than 10gb. Do I get a notification of what is left and not downloaded?
Hi Sheila thanks for the kind message - You've probably seen this already but the 10GB only refers to the size of the download chunks - so you should be able to download everything. Hope this helps and good luck with your storage!
Thank you. Yes I realised that and it was a great tip. I'm still left with the photos on the drive though even though I've downloaded so now have to try and delete them which is proving an issue
For some reason the dates aren't showing up correctly. Did I do something wrong? It shows Jan 1 1980 for everything..... Instead of the date I have them listed in google photos. :(
Hi Jessica - thanks for the kind question: you're right, you've not done anything wrong. Google seems to separate out the data for the photos into a different file which is the .json file. Which is extremely frustrating. There are things online to recombine this data back again but I've not tried it. The other way to download all, which takes much longer but keeps the data together - is to put all the photos into a single album... or a number of large albums (maybe by the year?) And then you can select 'download' on the album which seems to keep the data and dates on the photo files. Hope this helps and thanks again for the kind question.
After you choose the first amount of pics/vids from our Google photos app to download, which is obviously not ALL of the photos/video✓, OK.... ...how do we know where to pick up where we left off of ✓?, with this initial transfer you talk about. I'm wonder if it is obvious, like there is a box to tap that says "next blankety-blank amount" or what do I do after this very first chunk is transfered away & I wish to continue to dwnld more/all of my media stuffs???
The only problem with this method is I have like 5 million folders all fragmented, when all I wanted was a flat single folder with all my photos, any ideas?
Thanks for the kind question. Just go back to takeout.google.com - it will tell you there when the download is ready, you don't need the email - it's just a courtesy email. Hope this helps!
Ok, but what if im already at googles email max (all of a sudden) and cant recieve emails anymore? Will google still send me tye email or can i download it to an external drive?
Many thanks. Very useful but how do I find the downloaded photos, please? I want to save them on my pc (Windows 11) so I opened the email saying that a copy of my photos had been created, and clicked the Download button. What next? Thanks again
Thanks a bunch. I am 28 years young and I take a TON of photographs. I am that guy when I ask someone to take a photo or I am taking the photo - I take a TON to make sure there's at least 1 good one. I never really delete the extras though lol. Besides that point, am I the only one who is scared to start to try and delete duplicates / delete junk or organize photos taken? My actual; question is what is the best way to deal with this type of situation?
HOW TO FIX YOUR GOOGLE PHOTOS STORAGE PROBLEM:
ruclips.net/video/R_f1em_7mjU/видео.html
HOW TO FIX GOOGLE PHOTOS STORAGE PROBLEM FOREVER with these tips:
ruclips.net/video/P61Su8sa_2c/видео.html
HOW TO OPEN GOOGLE PHOTOS:
photos.google.com
HOW TO OPEN GOOGLE TAKEOUT:
takeout.google.com
If this video helps, LEAVE A COMMENT below to say hi - I'd love to hear from you.
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Hi I may have lost some film and photos.. in the download. Using a Chromebook and a notification comes up unconfirmed download not supported, Have I lost all the ones that state this?
Hi Neil, I only get json files
WORDS CANNOT EXPRESS HOW MUCH I WISH YOU TO BE BLESSED FOR THIS TIMELY HELP
How did this help you? I did what he said and I can't move my photos.
Files are all over the place? one folder might have only2 or 3 pictures I dnt like this method at all😭😭
Thank you! I wasted hours trying to download 500 pics at a time from Google! This method was so quick and easy. I downloaded 1 year at a time onto my external hard-drive. You saved my mental sanity!
Well maybe I spoke too hastily! How do I open the images I downloaded?
I searched for an hour before your video explained it in 3 minutes. Thank you.
Thanks for the kind comment, I appreciate it
Ni jilione mbithi
Why won't they include a "select all" option within Google Photos? Guess that would make things too easy.
Very true thanks.
Because they want you to pay for more storage 🤔
I have a feeling its not wanting to deal with the massive amount of bandwidth necessary to handle many people downloading all files at the the same time.
they removed that feature
This is frustrating. I have over 1k photos in Google photos. I have to manually click on each pic. It's ridiculous
Brilliant video. I went to copy photos from my Pixel 7 to my computer and found they weren't there. I had been looking at them and didn't realise they were uploaded and not physically on my phone. Downloaded straight away....thanks for a great video.
I was downloading photos the dumb way by selecting individually 🤣. Thank you, you have saved me so much time and effort!
Thanks for the kind comment Sarah.
The Google Takeout does strip the photos of metadata (like time and date) though
Another way to do it is to put the photos you want into an album and download that album - it's a bit longer but all the information is downloaded.
Good luck with your Google Photos!
This is just what I didn't know I needed!! I was downloading all of my photos and videos the first way you showed and it took so long. Can't wait to try this more efficient way of downloading everything to an external hard drive. Thank you!
This was a sanity saver as I was staring at 15GB of photos needing to be moved. Very easy to follow, thank you!
I don't know why they can't explain this or have a link in Google photos?! Well I do... so they can make more money.
Thanks for this!
Thanks for the kind comment Sam, good luck with your storage!
Good one Neil !!! So many RUclipsrs try to explain TakeOut & they drone-on for so long BUT your RUclips is clear and specific on how to do it in one short video.
Thanks for the kind comment Ray, I really appreciate it. Good luck with your storage!
Thank you for the informative video! I used to work in the tech industry, and it's literally beside me how simple tasks such as downloading your photos can be so difficult. Great video and thank you for the help.
thanks , I did get the downloads but can't open or extract the files..the actual pics. MS is asking for an app to open the "CRDOWNLOAD" file. What should I use? Presume now I need to download something from the MS App Store to actually open these files to see the pics? Thanks, D
Hi Dennis
Thanks for the question -- I think the file that is downloaded should be named something like Takeout, rather than CRDOWNLOAD and the filename should end with .zip
I think the file you have might not be fully downloaded.
It would be worth fully downloading again, and make sure you have enough space on your drive to download it.
If the file name ends with .zip you should be able to right click on it and choose "Extract all" where it will extract everything into the folder that you need.
Hope this helps.
.crdownload is the file extension Google Chrome uses for downloads while they are in the process of downloading. Upon completion it will have the correct extension.
Your file is either not fully downloaded or the download has failed.
Thanks for this. Please explain the .json files it creates and what do do with them once I download my photos to my computer's hard drive.
Hi Cleo - thanks for the kind question.
Google Drive strips out all of the metadata - all the extra information attached to a photo file - and puts it into the .json file of the same name. I don't use these, but some people use them.
Hope this helps!
Hi Neil, quick question, I did all this and now trying to open photos and videos on my computer, some files are JSON and Windows media player files that I can't open.... What can I do to open them?
@@himi8788 hi thanks for the kind question-- the .Json files are the metadata for the photos - if you need the metadata to stay with the picture file, mass download them as folders - put the pictures into one big folder and download that folder.
For the videos - sorry about this, it seems that Google has given the videos a dumb format now- I convert them by uploading to RUclips then downloading from RUclips Studio, but there are easier walkthroughs online for converting them
Hope this helps!
How do you maintain the original time stamp of the pics taken?..
Hello Neil, hope you are keeping well. Would you please be so kind to let me know why when I download the pics and extract them I cannot open them, they seems to be in json format. Thanks
Mate! A thousand thanks! This has been popping up recently, and frankly I didn't even know google was backing up ALL my photos and videos! Of course, Google websites are completely USELESS in solving this issue- and you did in only a couple of minutes! I owe you a serious pint! 💪😅🍻
That's really great to hear David, thanks for taking the time to leave this kind comment.
It does strip the metadata from the photo files, so the other way to do it is to put everything you want into an album and download the album, but that takes ages. Good luck with your Google Storage and thanks again!
I did follow the same but the photo dates for few of the photo got changed to current date, how to preserve the date time for all photos
i downloaded the takeout but a few of the files have only come up in .json format and not .jpeg.
is there any way to ensure that all my files get downloaded in the .jpeg format too?
what to do about json files , how to get them in jpeg or jpg ??
Thanks for the kind question - this is a big downside with this method.
As you may know the json files are files with the metadata for the photos (type of camera, exposure details etc)
I think the only other way to do this is to put the photos into large albums and downloading the albums, where the json file information is kept inside the jpegs. It takes longer but it keeps the information together.
Hope this helps and thanks again.
this is a pity on google photos side!!!! but thanks for suggesting this hack, I am stuck and want to get my huge photos data back.@@neilmossey
What about photos that have not been classified into albums? Are they exported as well?
Thanks for the kind question - for me, it exports everything, all photos and videos. Hope this helps!
thanks for the information. I have downloaded the zipped files, but after unzipping, many files are in .json format and not viewable. Is there any way to open them?
Hi @CarrotAuntie - thanks for the kind question - I believe the .json files contain the metadata for each photo and video.
If you right click on the file name, and choose the "Open with" option, then open using your web browser, so something like Chrome or Safari.
Hope this helps!
How can I save them straight onto my harddrive rather than onto my laptop then my hard drive? Thank you
why some of my pictures and videos are downloaded in .JSON file format. How can I access them on my PC ??
The problem you mentioned at the begin of the video with the 15 gb was exactly the problem I had. Thanks for this tutorial it helped a lot!
Thanks for the kind comment @funnyattacks2748 - really appreciate it.
And good luck with your Google Storage!
But does this way save the orignal date that the photo was taken? My harddrive doesnt show any of the orignal pic dates.
The date information will change according to the day you download the file.So it will not be the same as the shooting date.
Hey neil please help me...... So will i receive that email of exported file in the same gmail account whose storage is full?
Hi Neil what are jpg.json files all about? Can I delete them? Thanks
Hi, thanks for the kind question @albertagius5267
It seems that Google strips out all the date information in the photo files into separate .json files. So you can delete them: I think some people need that information and try to combine them back with the photos but I've not bothered with that. Hope this helps!
Hi i have more than 500GB photos in google photos. but I can download only 50GB. any solution?
It'll export them in 50 gig chunks meaning, if you wanted to export all 500G worth of images, you'll have ten 50G ZIP files instead of one large 500G file.
Reading is fundamental 😉👌🏾
Wow. WOW. WOW. WOW. The things we don't know until explain. Thanks a million. So easy!! Liked and subscribed. Wow.
Is it possible to do this on my iPhone ? I don’t want the pics on my laptop!
3:13 Would I still be able to get the mail even if I have the "Can't send or receive emails
You don't have enough storage. Get more storage, or delete items from Google Photos, Drive or Gmail." Error?
Hi Neil, thanks for the video. Is it possible to also extract the date and time of the photos? Unfortunately this information got lost during the download. Thanks for your support!
I tried it, but I have downloaded photos along with copy of each photo. Now I cant delete that copy. How can that be sorted out?
Tysm! But question, when doing this, does it restore the date/time the picture had when it was in google photos? For example, i have a picture from 2019 in Google photos. I want to download that to my gallery while also keeping that time and date.
Hi thanks for the kind question - forgive me, I think Google strips out the data using this method. If you want to keep the data with the picture file, it's best to download the picture individually from Google Photos. Hope this helps.
Hi @Neilmossey Thanks for making this video. This may be a silly question, and I don't see that anyone else in the comments has asked it, but when I followed your method, Google seems to have separated all my photos and saved them in a bunch of separate takeout folders, so I have multiple folders with the same name, but each folder contains different files, some .jpg and some .json. Is there an easy way to determine that all my photos have been exported, without me manually having to go through every single folder?
What is the implications of downloading a smaller size zip opposed to the larger option?
Hi thanks for the kind question - the smaller size zip means that you'll get the same files downloaded, but in more folders - the zip is the size of the chunks to download the same data. Hope this makes sense. Good luck with your download!
@@neilmossey thanks 💕
I can do Google TakeOut. How do I OPEN the photos on my drive?
Hi Thomas thanks for the kind question.
If they are not opening when you double click on them, it might be because the folder that is downloaded is 'zipped'.
You you might already know this but you can unzip the folder by right-clicking on the folder and choosing unzip. Hope this might help
Thanks for the video. Quick question though are the downloads ordered from earliest picture to latest, vice verse, or just randomly?
Hi thanks I don't know - for me they're ordered by file name.. Sorry I can't help more and thanks again for the kind question
Thanks-you so much. I was stressing clicking each individual photo, just for it to unselect and having to start over again. This video has definitely been absolutely amazing. Very grateful, thank-you very much.
Thanks for taking the time to leave such a kind comment, I appreciate it. Good luck with your downloading!
Thanks Neil, you are a diamond! How come Google kept this little gem so quiet? Sure as hell saves a lot of time. Good job.
00:05 Download all photos and videos from Google Photos
00:38 The problem with downloading photos from Google Photos
01:10 Google Photos page needs a menu button with options
01:42 Google Takeout allows users to download all the data Google has on them
02:12 Export all photos from Google Photos with selected formats
02:43 Exporting data as a zip file and receiving download link via email.
03:13 Download Google data in just one minute.
03:42 Reduce the size of photos and videos in Google photos
Does this also work if you can't receive emails cause google photos are full
Hi @darkoak-varnish6404 really appreciate the kind question.
Yes! It's what I used to backup before removing things to bring it back down under 15GB
Hope this helps!
You can download by album as well, so you could put everything into a single album and download that.
Hope this helps and good luck with your storage!
Hey Neil, Do you know if it is possible to download the photos directly to an external hard drive? Or must one download them to your computer first? My computer storage is full also, so that is why i'm asking. Thanks!
I followed these steps but when I unzip the file and click on the folder I just get taken back to the previous folder. It's most strange, the zip file shows data but the unzipped file doesn't. What am I doing wrong?
That is strange. Sorry you're experiencing this. I don't know your computer setup, but is it possible to save to desktop. and make sure it unzips into a different folder on the desktop so it doesn't unzip it into itself. That's all I can think of, sorry. Good luck!
@@neilmossey - thanks for getting back to me. I wonder if everything just took a super long time to extract as when I went back yesterday low and behold there were files. Many of them are JSON files rather than JPEG. Do I need to convert these? I can't view them when I try to open them but from doing a little research it seems that these files might just contain data relating to the photos and not the photos themselves.
Does this work for videos too?
How do put all the downloaded photos back on your phone? After i gave in and added more google storage it took all my photos off my phone . I want them back.
This video is by far the most needed ones and awesome explanation!!!
As when we click export. it shows it takes days and hours to complete. should our system be turned on for it to complete? can you help me on this Neil.
Hi, sorry for the delay in replying - you might have seen now that you don't need to keep that window open. It prepares the files for export on Google's side, so you can leave the page and come back later. They send an email to let you know when it is ready.
Hope this helps and thanks again for the kind question.
Can this be done from TCL smart phone. Init ho doing check laptop to see what photo are saved there or how to bring them all together. To oicee
Hi Julie
I'm not sure if this can be done on a smart phone because the download is a zip file and I don't know how a phone can unzip files. Maybe there's an app for that.
To get as far as downloading the zip file, I would go to takeout.google.com in my phone's web browser (eg Safari or Chrome) and follow the instructions on the video. Then if it were me, I would look up how to unzip files on a smart phone.
Hope this helps!
This was super helpful but most of my images downloaded as either .json or .jpg.json files and none of them can be opened. Does anyone know why this is? Im afraid to delete everything from google photos before I know I have all my pics.
For me i seach to empty my phone to photos/videos but keep it in my cloud Google Photo. I'd like to have an option that only send photos/videos to Google Photo but only that. Like i use a external disk but in the cloud. Then when i delete a photo to my phone nothing happen into my cloud. Is it possible ?
Thanks man, been at it for days trying to get all my pics! Now a couple of clicks and i will have them all!
it saves it with the date the pic and video was taken right ? my old method doesnt save it like that
If we are completely out of storage and cant send or recieve emails can we give a different email address to send the zip file to? Or download the zip file directly to computer?
Hi thanks for the kind question
Yes - you can go directly to takeout.google.com from the computer to download there.
Takeout shows you the status of your download - if it's ready to download yet.
Hope this helps and good luck with your Google Storage!
I have 108gb files. So i do 50 50 gb two times?
Create export then click create another export?
Me watching this nearing the end of my 2TB storage 😬
Thanks for the kind comment - fingers crossed...
Good luck with your Google storage!
Hello, have you already tried it? I am considering to upgrade my Google One Sub from 200GB to 2TB but don ´t know if I will still be able to save all of the pictures after upgrading it. Sorry for my English and greetings from Europe!
My issue is that my albums get transferred, but I'm missing photos from each one. One album had five photos and I got one. One album had 25 photos and I only got 10. Do you have any experience with this type of problem? I have started downloading my albums one by one and I guess I'll go by year after that but I'm having to count them to make sure I get them all.
Thanks for the kind comment Kay - so these are albums within the Google Takeout download?
This is really strange. Downloading the albums - if I've understood correctly - looks like a good idea, because the album downloads include all the metadata... but that's not helpful if it's not including all the photos! Hope you manage to find a fix and thanks again.
Hi Neil,
thanks so much for your video with clear instructions and for sharing the website.
Just wondering if you can shed some light on my circumstance, I received the email up to 35 minutes after requesting the photos and vids via the 10GB option then it said mine is 31.02GB but, my storage is 15GB on my Google account, I went through this process on my laptop so I'm unsure why it has so much over, I have over 30GBs of photos and vids on my phone that backs up to Google but, I'm unsure if it was trying to transfer excess but, my Google account isn't over 15GB so I'm puzzled. Can you clarify what's going on here?
I thought I'd try download them all at once and it crashed and failed to download, so I'll try download it by having it at the default 2GB as recommended then try download them 1 at a time to be more manageable for the system.
Also, just a question, when you download the content, it has the download date, but, does it still have the original date photos and videos were taken in the properties of the image? I hope so...
Hi Hautai
Thanks for the kind comment and questions.
The total download might be over 15GB if the photos and videos are stored at Storage Saver quality - happily the download gives us the photos and videos at Original quality - so this might explain the difference?
Downloading 15x 2GB doesn't sound like fun though - hope you're able to download in larger chunks.
Also - I should have mentioned this in the video, but the downloads separate the metadata in the properties into separate files. I don't know why because it's really unhelpful.
If you want to download and keep the properties in the file, we have to download them directly from the Google Photos site.
One way to do this a bit more quickly is to put the photos into albums and download the album one album at a time. I hear this keeps the properties intact.
Hope this helps and good luck with your downloads!
Thank you very much Neil for the clarity re: my circumstance & for the further tip re: downloading to keep the property data.
I've had to download 5 x 50gb takeouts. Now I need to merge them back together into 1 folder. How do I do that? Also How do we get rid of all these JSON files?
are you able to that the pics u downloaded and store them on a new google photos account?
I've done as you explained. But somes photos are missing, and many others are '.json' ... Impossible to read it.
Can you help me please ?
Thanks for the kind question, and sorry to hear about this.
There might be folders which are backed up elsewhere in Google Drive folders, but I'm sure you've checked everything downloaded.
Google strips out the metadata from the photos into .json files, so those files just contain data.
If you'd like to keep everything together, you could select all photos into very large albums in Google Photos and download the albums instead. It's more time consuming but more thorough.
Hope this helps and good luck with your Google Photos storage!
I downloaded to my macbook backup LACIE but on the top right of my Macbook it states in red, "Permissions required" so it didn't download to Lacie. In chrome download history "failed - insufficient permissions" . How do I proceed? I am so happy to have found your RUclips Neil . Thank You!
Hi, does Google photos download include the videos?
Hi @gelandersen thanks for the kind question:
yes, it does!
You don't have to do anything extra, the videos are just there in the download folder. Hope this helps.
Good luck with your download!
@@neilmossey thank you. Would you say I can safely delete the photos from my google photos after this procedure?
@@gelandersen If you have them backed up to a hard drive or memory stick or storage card (or both!) you can delete...
Be aware that this download is of all the photos but Google has removed the date information from the picture and video files...
If you're feeling brave, you could even set up a google account just for your photos, and use partner sharing to share your google photos over to that photos account so that you don't lose them!
The shared photos do not take up quota in the shared account so it's a good way of backing them up.
Make sure auto save is switched on, so that when you delete from the original account, they'll stay undeleted in the partner shared account - I'm sure you dont want or need to see another one of my videos but I show how I do it in this very long video here
ruclips.net/video/5G_N4AnLMiM/видео.html
Good luck with your Google photos!
Thank you so much
hi thanks for video, i followed the steps if i open the file from emails on my phone will the pictures download to gallery?
many thanks
How did you manage to fix my life in less then 5 minutes!!!!!!!!!!!! THANKS SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What if i got more then 150 gb en zip file is max 50 ? Thanx
Heyy , due to full storage I am not receiving any mail...so what can I do ?
Hi Harshada - I've got you covered!
Follow the steps in this playlist - if it's Google Photos try the photos video, if it's Gmail follow the Gmail video. ruclips.net/video/5G_N4AnLMiM/видео.html
Good luck with your storage and thanks for your kind question.
@@neilmossey Thankyou so much buddy 😊🤩
sir !!! nice , pls guide what to do further , i have down load all photo so what next step ? as after down load still space not arranged , do i need to delete from gmail ? after down load to lap top ?
Ok i have downloaded them but cant open them how do i open them or do i need some software up date 🤔 thank you
Hi Chris, thanks for the kind question - you might have discovered this already but just in case, right click on the download folder and unzip them. Forgive me I don't know what system you're on but hope you can find an unzip app that's already part of your system.
Hey Neil! How bloody marvellous to find you! Fiona Jennison x
Hahahaha! HI FIONA! What a brilliant comment! Get in touch if you need any help!! ! ! !
This is a nice way to download all the photos. But it frustrates me that you don't get back the date of the time you took the photo. Behind every photo you download is the time and date of the download. ...today at 8:45 for example.
do you know a solution for this.
Hi thanks for the kind question - I'm so sorry to hear this.
My photos are originally named by the phone with the date and time so I didn't notice this but can see that on mine it has all the metadata - phone, dimensions and even focal length - but not the date and time data.
All of this information seems to be in the .json file which has the same file name and the .json suffix. I don't know how to reunify the json data with the photo or video file I'm afraid, so the data is there but frustratingly not in the original picture file. I really hope you find a workaround for this and sorry I can't be of more help.
Thanks again.
Can I leave the page where it says export in progress or do i have to stay there and stay connected until it is complete?
I just have a question. do you lose quality when you download or export them. Thanks
Sir, you are a savior I didn't I needed. God bless you and all your silly train photos🙏🏾🙏🏾
THANK YOU! Can you show us how to piece together photos/albums when multiple 2G archives have been created?
Thank you for this input. I haven't tried it yet, but will shortly. Like you, I am out of space with Google, and refuse to pay for more. I want to download about half of my photos which go back many years. I would like to put them on a portable hard drive and run slide shows of them all. Is this possible? Can they go directly to the hard drive instead of a computer? Would they have to be extracted from zip form before a slide show would run? Also, I don't need all of the meta data, is there a way to avoid it?
Hi Sharon
Thanks for your kind message and question.
It is possible to do this, but I think it's only possible to download everything first and then choose what you need for the slide shows.
My download of everything was quite manageable, and yes you can choose to download directly to the hard drive or memory stick.
Once it is downloaded, just right click on the download to select 'unzip' which creates the new unzipped folder and you can then delete the original downloaded zipped folder.
The metadata will be in separate folders - the file size of those is tiny and can just be deleted - just delete everything except your folder of photos & videos.
Hope I've understood the question correctly and not suggesting things you already know.
Thanks again and good luck!
@@neilmossey Oh my Gosh!! Thank you so much. I really didn't expect a reply, but one can always hope!! I'm printing out your reply, so I can have a quick and easy record of your advice. You've been a tremendous help. Thank you again!
@@SharonWoosley Thanks and good luck Sharon.
And nothing bad will happen by trying to download the Google Photos file from Google Takeaway, I promise!
I thought this would work great, but then all of my videos and pictures were sent over as a JSON file onto the external hard drive and now I cannot open any pictures. How can this be fixed?
Hi Jeanine, thanks for the kind comment and question.
The JSON files are the metadata for the photos as separate files.
There should be a folder with jpegs in, with similar file names but ending in Jpeg
Can you see those files?
There's a chance that only json files were selected for the download, but unlikely - and if that's the case it would be easy to use takeout.google.com to create another download with the jpegs selected.
Hope this helps - they exist if you can see the Json files.
Fingers crossed and thanks again
Thank you. Just found your video and now waiting for photos to download. Have selected 10gb as suggested but what happens if photos are more than 10gb. Do I get a notification of what is left and not downloaded?
Hi Sheila thanks for the kind message - You've probably seen this already but the 10GB only refers to the size of the download chunks - so you should be able to download everything. Hope this helps and good luck with your storage!
Thank you. Yes I realised that and it was a great tip. I'm still left with the photos on the drive though even though I've downloaded so now have to try and delete them which is proving an issue
For some reason the dates aren't showing up correctly. Did I do something wrong? It shows Jan 1 1980 for everything..... Instead of the date I have them listed in google photos. :(
Hi Jessica - thanks for the kind question: you're right, you've not done anything wrong. Google seems to separate out the data for the photos into a different file which is the .json file. Which is extremely frustrating.
There are things online to recombine this data back again but I've not tried it.
The other way to download all, which takes much longer but keeps the data together - is to put all the photos into a single album...
or a number of large albums (maybe by the year?)
And then you can select 'download' on the album which seems to keep the data and dates on the photo files.
Hope this helps and thanks again for the kind question.
Thank you so mych, but is there a way to reverse this process. i mean i want to transfer the photos from my laptop to google photos.
Maybe it's the best and most deserved like and subscribe I've ever done
Thanks a lot! Spent a few hours to find it out and then found this video. 😊
Followed all the steps with you,export is in process......
How long doesnt take usually?
I have downloaded the photos and videos from Google. I have some screen recorder videos and unable to play it on my computer, can you please help?
What to do when the files get downloaded in .json and I can't access the photos because of that even when I selected mp4 and .zip?
After you choose the first amount of pics/vids from our Google photos app to download, which is obviously not ALL of the photos/video✓, OK....
...how do we know where to pick up where we left off of ✓?, with this initial transfer you talk about.
I'm wonder if it is obvious, like there is a box to tap that says "next blankety-blank amount" or what do I do after this very first chunk is transfered away & I wish to continue to dwnld more/all of my media stuffs???
I have a question, if I have a 90 GB worth of photos in google photos, wouldnt I need to set the export settings to 50 GB?
The only problem with this method is I have like 5 million folders all fragmented, when all I wanted was a flat single folder with all my photos, any ideas?
Would be nice to mention HOW LONG the download for how many GB took.
nice video. what about gmail storage or storage full alert message? it is automatically moved? or we try to deleted after backup?
Thanks for the kind question.
With Gmail, make sure you empty your trash/bin folder to make sure the memory is freed.
Good luck with your Gmail!
due to full of storage if i don't receive the email what do i do?
Thanks for the kind question.
Just go back to takeout.google.com - it will tell you there when the download is ready, you don't need the email - it's just a courtesy email.
Hope this helps!
Ok, but what if im already at googles email max (all of a sudden) and cant recieve emails anymore? Will google still send me tye email or can i download it to an external drive?
Many thanks. Very useful but how do I find the downloaded photos, please? I want to save them on my pc (Windows 11) so I opened the email saying that a copy of my photos had been created, and clicked the Download button. What next? Thanks again
Thanks a bunch. I am 28 years young and I take a TON of photographs. I am that guy when I ask someone to take a photo or I am taking the photo - I take a TON to make sure there's at least 1 good one. I never really delete the extras though lol. Besides that point, am I the only one who is scared to start to try and delete duplicates / delete junk or organize photos taken? My actual; question is what is the best way to deal with this type of situation?
HI, after download does the google photo still in the google drive storage?
is the date of pics change when we download it or still the same as the origin photo?
Will the download link still be able to send to the Gmail account that is completely full and not accepting incoming emails anymore?
Will I receive a link email when I have no space available to receive anymore emails? Thank you!