This content is likely not relevant anymore. Try searching or browse recent questions.
How do I download all photos to my computer 3 Recommended Answers 7 Replies 318 Upvotes
I want to download all my Google Photos to my computer and store them there. Other answers to this question are no longer available. How to download all photos to computer or device please. Thanks.
Recommended Answer Recommended Answers (3)
Recommended Answer
Most Relevant Answer
Google offers a tool called Takeout that is intended to let you easily take all your content and copy to your computer's hard drive. The problem with takeout is that the resulting .zip files are very difficult to navigate. Your photos may be there, but good luck finding particular photos, or restoring to any semblance of order.
Selecting photos/videos using Google Photos and downloading to your computer is easy and effective. Select by clicking on the first photo, then shift-click on the last in a group. Click the 3-dot menu and choose Download all. Problem - you are limited to 500 per download in this procedure.
But, if you first add photos to an album, that 500 limit becomes 20,000. Once photos are in an album you can open the album, click the 3-dot menu and Download all.
Assuming you have more than 20,000 photos, here is my advice
- Select all photos for one year (assuming that is less than 20,000) Note: Although it should be accomplished with one click at the beginning and one shift-click at the end, I have found it takes a while for the photos to load and catch up, so I do several Shift-clicks along the way, continually adding to my selection.
- Click the + to add the selected photos to an album for the year
- Open the album, click the 3-dot menu and choose Download all.
- Repeat for every year
I did this for 2019, my album ended up with approx 7,000 photos/videos, and the resulting .zip file on my computer is 27GB.
Personally, I don't want ALL my pictures on my computer, but I do want my chosen photos/videos backed up to a local hard drive. I make albums each month of my chosen photos and I download them to my computer. Here's a video: https://youtu.be/r1XGwPIFkCM
recommended this
marked this as an answer
Recommended based on info available
Our automated system analyzes replies to choose the one that's most likely to answer the question. If it seems to be helpful, we may eventually mark it as a Recommended Answer.
Most relevant based on info available
Our automated system analyzes the replies to choose the one that's most likely to answer the question.
Recommended Answer
Most Relevant Answer
@ MaryAnn Thompson 7478
You find some additional info to the excellent advice by Chris in this article.
recommended this
marked this as an answer
Recommended based on info available
Our automated system analyzes replies to choose the one that's most likely to answer the question. If it seems to be helpful, we may eventually mark it as a Recommended Answer.
Most relevant based on info available
Our automated system analyzes the replies to choose the one that's most likely to answer the question.
Recommended Answer
Most Relevant Answer
In addition:
I have the good habit to let grow my actual yearalbum almost daily - but with selected and edited pictures only. The rest is deleted or archived.
So at the start of the next year that album is ready for downloading and contains no rubbish at all anymore.
It is no problem to create additional thematic and smaller albums for sharing mainly, often temporarily.
recommended this
marked this as an answer
Recommended based on info available
Our automated system analyzes replies to choose the one that's most likely to answer the question. If it seems to be helpful, we may eventually mark it as a Recommended Answer.
Most relevant based on info available
Our automated system analyzes the replies to choose the one that's most likely to answer the question.
Most Relevant Answer Most Relevant Answers (0)
All Replies (7)
Recommended Answer
Most Relevant Answer
Google offers a tool called Takeout that is intended to let you easily take all your content and copy to your computer's hard drive. The problem with takeout is that the resulting .zip files are very difficult to navigate. Your photos may be there, but good luck finding particular photos, or restoring to any semblance of order.
Selecting photos/videos using Google Photos and downloading to your computer is easy and effective. Select by clicking on the first photo, then shift-click on the last in a group. Click the 3-dot menu and choose Download all. Problem - you are limited to 500 per download in this procedure.
But, if you first add photos to an album, that 500 limit becomes 20,000. Once photos are in an album you can open the album, click the 3-dot menu and Download all.
Assuming you have more than 20,000 photos, here is my advice
- Select all photos for one year (assuming that is less than 20,000) Note: Although it should be accomplished with one click at the beginning and one shift-click at the end, I have found it takes a while for the photos to load and catch up, so I do several Shift-clicks along the way, continually adding to my selection.
- Click the + to add the selected photos to an album for the year
- Open the album, click the 3-dot menu and choose Download all.
- Repeat for every year
I did this for 2019, my album ended up with approx 7,000 photos/videos, and the resulting .zip file on my computer is 27GB.
Personally, I don't want ALL my pictures on my computer, but I do want my chosen photos/videos backed up to a local hard drive. I make albums each month of my chosen photos and I download them to my computer. Here's a video: https://youtu.be/r1XGwPIFkCM
recommended this
marked this as an answer
Recommended based on info available
Our automated system analyzes replies to choose the one that's most likely to answer the question. If it seems to be helpful, we may eventually mark it as a Recommended Answer.
Most relevant based on info available
Our automated system analyzes the replies to choose the one that's most likely to answer the question.
Recommended Answer
Most Relevant Answer
@ MaryAnn Thompson 7478
You find some additional info to the excellent advice by Chris in this article.
recommended this
marked this as an answer
Recommended based on info available
Our automated system analyzes replies to choose the one that's most likely to answer the question. If it seems to be helpful, we may eventually mark it as a Recommended Answer.
Most relevant based on info available
Our automated system analyzes the replies to choose the one that's most likely to answer the question.
Recommended Answer
Most Relevant Answer
In addition:
I have the good habit to let grow my actual yearalbum almost daily - but with selected and edited pictures only. The rest is deleted or archived.
So at the start of the next year that album is ready for downloading and contains no rubbish at all anymore.
It is no problem to create additional thematic and smaller albums for sharing mainly, often temporarily.
recommended this
marked this as an answer
Recommended based on info available
Our automated system analyzes replies to choose the one that's most likely to answer the question. If it seems to be helpful, we may eventually mark it as a Recommended Answer.
Most relevant based on info available
Our automated system analyzes the replies to choose the one that's most likely to answer the question.
Recommended Answer
Most Relevant Answer
Thank you, thank you for the excellent and easy to follow advice from Chris and Rinus. I’ll save your brilliant answers!
recommended this
marked this as an answer
Recommended based on info available
Our automated system analyzes replies to choose the one that's most likely to answer the question. If it seems to be helpful, we may eventually mark it as a Recommended Answer.
Most relevant based on info available
Our automated system analyzes the replies to choose the one that's most likely to answer the question.
Recommended Answer
Most Relevant Answer
Warning: maybe there is one ugly disturbing factor in these downloads: all pictures (and movies) originating from shares via social media like Whatsapp have got the date of downloading, so they can't be sorted correctly between your normal camera pictures anymore. And that can't be corrected easily, especially if it are many.
The basic mistake is that these media should not be used for serious sharing, because the pictures send are technically murdered by these extremely popular apps, resulting in much less pixels and complete loss of any metadata.
I am curious if Chris has any valuable comment to that worldwide problem not caused by Google?
recommended this
marked this as an answer
Recommended based on info available
Our automated system analyzes replies to choose the one that's most likely to answer the question. If it seems to be helpful, we may eventually mark it as a Recommended Answer.
Most relevant based on info available
Our automated system analyzes the replies to choose the one that's most likely to answer the question.
Recommended Answer
Most Relevant Answer
@Rinus - I don't have a whole lot to add to that, except to verify that WhatsApp/Facebook etc. do severely downsize photos and strip them of all metadata, including date taken. Here's my video on changing dates on photos: https://geeksontour.com/2020/01/607-gp-change-photo-dates/
recommended this
marked this as an answer
Recommended based on info available
Our automated system analyzes replies to choose the one that's most likely to answer the question. If it seems to be helpful, we may eventually mark it as a Recommended Answer.
Most relevant based on info available
Our automated system analyzes the replies to choose the one that's most likely to answer the question.
Recommended Answer
Most Relevant Answer
Thanks Chris, you can't do better - at least for your old prints scanned.
But in case of WA c.s. the date & time shown on Google Photos often will be quite near to the actual shooting date & time because they are posted somewhat later on the same day or the next day. So you may get the impression there is no problem, but at downloading to computer, is goes totally wrong.
So in that case you need the Windows method to correct and then you can take the indicated date & time on GP as a reference. Because you can't add the correct timezone in Windows, you can take the timedifference into account if the these pictures were posted in Australia :-)
It all will be a hell of a job, especially when WA is much more popular (and easy) then quality sharing via Google Photos - then there would no such date problem at all and better picture quality also.
Hard to improve mankind.
Stay carefull and all the best together / Rinus
recommended this
marked this as an answer
Recommended based on info available
Our automated system analyzes replies to choose the one that's most likely to answer the question. If it seems to be helpful, we may eventually mark it as a Recommended Answer.
Most relevant based on info available
Our automated system analyzes the replies to choose the one that's most likely to answer the question.
This question is locked and replying has been disabled.
Link to post
Delete post?
This will remove the reply from the Answers section.
Notifications are off
Your notifications are currently off and you won't receive subscription updates. To turn them on, go to Notifications preferences on your Profile page.
This reply is no longer available.
Badges
Some community members might have badges that indicate their identity or level of participation in a community.
