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Google Photos: how to download them all to your local device

Hi all,

Occasionally, I'll see a post asking how to download Google Photos to their computer. It's actually really easy:

Google offers a service called "Takeout" which will bundle your Google photos and put them in a zipfile so you can download them en mass.

Go to this URL: Gloogle Takeout and if you're logged into you Google account, you'll be presented with a long list of things you can download. Select whatever you want, but make sure to select "Drive" and "Google Photos". I always choose "Drive" because sometimes there'll be photos in there as well.

After you click "Next", you will be presented with more options. Choose "send download link by email" from the "transfer to:" drop-down, then click the "transfer once" radio button (it's selected by default). For "file type", select ".zip" and then choose "50g" from the "file size" drop-down.

Once you click "Create Export", some time will pass and you'll eventually get an email with your download link. The zip files aren't labeled by what's in them, so you'll have to open them after downloading them to see what's in which file.

There ya go and happy downloading!

-- Mike Beebe

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12849 posts

Mike, photos on my iPhone go directly to Google Photos. It's just a quick setting change in the Google Photos settings on the iPhone. Of course, you may not want to get all photos on there, but it's an easy way to do it if you don't want to have to keep moving them over.