Google Takeout Photos: Export and Read Your Library
Google Takeout is how you download your whole Google Photos library in one go: every original photo and video, organised into one folder per year and one per album, with a small JSON file beside each picture holding its date, location and the people in it. Select Google Photos at takeout.google.com, create the export, and Google emails you a link when the ZIP files are ready.
This page walks through the export step by step, explains what you will find inside the archive and the two problems almost everyone runs into, then shows what that same archive says about your library once it is read: how many photos, which years, which places.
How to export Google Photos with Google Takeout
The whole setup takes about two minutes. The wait comes afterwards, while Google builds the archive.
- Open Takeout. Go to takeout.google.com and sign in with the account that holds your photos.
- Click Deselect all. Takeout selects every Google product by default. Starting clean keeps the export to your photos only, which makes it finish sooner.
- Tick Google Photos. Scroll down the list and select it.
- Choose albums, or keep everything. Click All photo albums included. Each year of your library is listed as its own entry, such as Photos from 2019, next to the albums you created. Untick what you do not need, or leave it all selected for the full library.
- Click Next step and pick the delivery. A download link by email is the simplest. You can also send the archive straight to Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive or Box.
- Choose ZIP and a 50 GB file size. A large library is split into several numbered files. The 50 GB limit means fewer files to download and keep track of.
- Click Create export. You can close the tab. Google emails you when the archive is ready.
For a large library the wait is measured in hours or days rather than minutes. See how long Google Takeout takes for times by export type, and our step-by-step Google Takeout instructions for the settings that apply to every product.
What is inside a Google Photos Takeout?
Open the archive and go to Takeout / Google Photos. You will find:
- One folder per year. Named Photos from 2019, Photos from 2020 and so on, translated into your account's language. Every photo and video in your library sits in the folder for the year it was taken.
- One folder per album. Each album you created gets its own folder, holding copies of the photos in it.
- A JSON file beside each photo. This sidecar file carries the photo's metadata: when it was taken, its GPS coordinates when it has them, its description, and the names of people Google recognised in it.
- The original files. JPEG and HEIC photos, RAW files if you uploaded them, and videos, in the quality they were stored in.
If the export was split into several ZIP files, download every part. A year folder can be spread over two archives, so a single part never holds the complete library. How the split works is explained in Google Takeout file size.
Two problems you will probably hit
Neither of them means the export went wrong. Both come from the way Google packages the library.
- Dates and places live in the JSON, not always in the photo. Google keeps much of the metadata in the sidecar file. An app that reads only the image can show the download date instead of the day the photo was taken, or lose its location. Tools exist that write the JSON data back into each file before you import the library elsewhere.
- Duplicates. A photo in one of your albums is exported twice, once in the album folder and once in its year folder. A photo you edited in Google Photos can also appear twice: the original, and a copy with -edited in its name. If you move the library to another service, import the year folders and skip the album folders, or let a duplicate finder clean up afterwards.
For the raw JSON format itself, see Google Takeout JSON files.
Sample data · your real report will look like this
Google Photos
Free previewLocation History
Free previewAd Profile
Every other section is a record of something you did. This one is what Google concluded about you from it.
Search Activity
YouTube Activity
Chrome Browsing
Android Activity
Gmail
What TakeoutReader reveals about your photo library
A Photos export is mostly pictures, but the folders and JSON files around them describe the library as a whole. TakeoutReader reads that structure in your browser and turns it into a summary:
- How many photos and videos you have. Counted from the year folders, so photos that also sit in an album are not counted twice.
- The years your library covers. Your first and most recent year, and how many photos you took in each one.
- Your busiest year. The year you took the most photos.
- How many albums you made.
- Where you took them. The countries you photographed in and your most photographed towns and cities.
- How many faces Google put a name to. The number of distinct people named in your photos' metadata.
One detail to be clear about: places and faces come from a sample. A ten-year library can hold tens of thousands of JSON files, and opening every one would freeze the browser tab. TakeoutReader opens up to 1,500 of them, spread evenly across the years, and the report says how many of those carried a location. The photo and video counts use the full library. Edited copies are counted as the separate files they are in the export.
Got your Photos export? See what is in it.
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How to read your export with TakeoutReader
- Open the ZIP as Google gave it to you. No need to unzip it. If you already extracted it, select the folder instead.
- If your export came in several parts, extract them all into one folder and select that folder, so the report covers the whole library rather than one part.
- Read the summary. The photo section sits beside everything else in the export, such as Location History, Search and YouTube, if you selected those too.
The archive is read on your device and never uploaded, which matters for a file full of family photos and the places they were taken. You can check this in your browser's Network tab while the report builds. More on handling the export carefully in is Google Takeout safe, and on everything else your account holds in what does Google know about me.
Frequently asked questions
How do I download all my Google Photos with Google Takeout?
Go to takeout.google.com, click Deselect all, then tick Google Photos. Leave All photo albums included as it is to export the whole library, choose ZIP and a 50 GB file size, then click Create export. Google emails you a download link when the archive is ready.
Can I export only some albums or years from Google Photos?
Yes. Under Google Photos in Takeout, click All photo albums included and untick everything you do not need. Each year of your library appears as its own entry, named Photos from 2019, Photos from 2020 and so on, next to your own albums.
Why does every photo have a JSON file next to it?
Google Takeout keeps much of a photo's information in a separate JSON file rather than inside the image. That sidecar file holds details such as when the photo was taken, the GPS coordinates and the people Google recognised. Some apps ignore it, which is why imported photos can show the wrong date.
Why are some photos duplicated in my Google Takeout?
A photo in one of your albums is exported twice: once in the album folder and once in its Photos from year folder. Photos you edited in Google Photos can also appear twice, as the original and an edited copy with -edited in the file name.
How long does a Google Photos Takeout take?
A few hours for a small library, and one to several days for a library of hundreds of gigabytes. It is the slowest product in Takeout because every original photo and video is copied. Exporting Photos on its own, or only selected albums, makes it finish sooner.
What does TakeoutReader show about my photo library?
How many photos and videos you have, which years they cover, how many you took each year and your busiest year, how many albums you made, the countries and places you photographed most and how many faces Google put a name to. Places and faces are read from a sample of up to 1,500 photo files spread across the library.
Turn your Google Photos export into a readable report
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