PSA: Google Photos Unlimited Storage Ends Next Month, Here's How to Export Your Pictures to iCloud

[Techwatcher]

I have amazon and it’s free as long as you are a prime customer for photos and 5gb of videos I think. I was doing backups on both google and amazon so now I’m just going to keep uploading new photos to amazon.

That's dope. I have it too but have not really utilized it yet. I may consider doing so.

 

[prombough]

well this is fun — i never even realized that we get free photo storage with amazon. anyone using this — is it a decent platform?

It's fine as an extra service for me, because it uploads the full quality photo, so I often go to it for that. However, it caps at 5gigs for videos, so I am looking for a paid service. From what I can tell their paid service up the 2tb I need is more expensive than Apple's or Google's. Just for the fact that Apple's is full quality videos I will probably end up paying for it in the end (especially if they come out with lossless music with the Apple One package), but I got another year before I will full up the Google free tier I think.

 

[Pman17]

Trying to move from Google Drive to iCloud is a pain. Trying to do it right now. The move from Drive Stream to iCloud doesn’t work on Mac. On windows, iCloud refuses to upload and then puts folders in random places.

 

[fredrik9]

Metadata.

Sometimes I cannot remember where, when and which devices I took picture from. Google Photo will able to provide information.

If I want to go that location again, I can directly go to Google Maps for navigation. I can also make photo album, order print from directly from Google Photo app.

I can also use Google Lens to identify something I don't know. For example, I am able to tell what kind of flower just by taking picture and using Google Lens directly from Google Photo app.

When I need to send large amount of photo to someone, simply select all of them, create hyperlink and send this link to person I wish to share.

You can't do any from iCloud.

You can link share from iCloud to anyone. You can check metadata on Mac or with an app such as Metapho. Location of a photo is available directly in the Photos app. There are other apps for Google Lens functionality available.

 

[KanosWRX]

You can link share from iCloud to anyone. You can check metadata on Mac or with an app such as Metapho. Location of a photo is available directly in the Photos app. There are other apps for Google Lens functionality available.

Why would someone want to use 3-4 different apps and services to get everything Google Photos did in one? Not to mention its platform agnostic.

 

[geemy]

meanwhile I'll keep using my pixel 1 to upload free unlimited raw pictures and videos in original quality "for life"

 

[alexandr]

It's fine as an extra service for me, because it uploads the full quality photo, so I often go to it for that. However, it caps at 5gigs for videos, so I am looking for a paid service. From what I can tell their paid service up the 2tb I need is more expensive than Apple's or Google's. Just for the fact that Apple's is full quality videos I will probably end up paying for it in the end (especially if they come out with lossless music with the Apple One package), but I got another year before I will full up the Google free tier I think.

thank you! yea, i noticed that their tiers are, in fact more expensive than apple, so they can keep that)
but i just checked and apparently their photo storage takes raw files, which is amazing! i'm gonna devote some of this weekend to back my raw files up. and my most beloved videos too! this is sweet)

 

[dukeblue219]

Here's a good feature - on Google Photos I can search for my 5 year old's name and I get every photo of him from birth to current. I didn't have to tag more than a couple of them years ago, and Google has kept up with his growth. It's amazing, and it's smart enough to not mix in photos of his little brother. They looked alike as babies, but I guess Google is also considering the photo dates to figure out which kid is which.

Does iCloud photos do anything like that? I honestly don't know.

 

[Aoligei]

You can link share from iCloud to anyone. You can check metadata on Mac or with an app such as Metapho. Location of a photo is available directly in the Photos app. There are other apps for Google Lens functionality available.

If Google maps can do everything without separate apps, why should I use use alternative?

Really simple question.

 

[bwayne]

It’s creepy to think about what Google has likely done with all of these photos stored in their cloud over all these years.

 

[BigMcGuire]

Here's a good feature - on Google Photos I can search for my 5 year old's name and I get every photo of him from birth to current. I didn't have to tag more than a couple of them years ago, and Google has kept up with his growth. It's amazing, and it's smart enough to not mix in photos of his little brother. They looked alike as babies, but I guess Google is also considering the photo dates to figure out which kid is which.

Does iCloud photos do anything like that? I honestly don't know.

Yep, iCloud Photos has person recognition. It isn't as good as Googles but it works. You have to tag them initially then over time it'll ask if this person is the person you tagged - and eventually get them all.

 

[BigMcGuire]

The thought of asking iCloud to upload a good 20,000 files fills me with dread

It was initially a very frustrating experience for me years ago when I moved from Google Photos to iCloud. I moved around 98,000 videos/photos - #71 (my experience here). Once I moved it, it's been very stable and works really well.

 

[Aoligei]

I understand you don't/won't take effort to shape your future. I understand then it is "no big deal to you". I am good with you having that concept and acting as you deem fit.

Hopefully you can ALSO learn to understand that great things in human history are not made by people like you, but rather by people who do own how their future shapes up. They don't speak words of "inevitability" and instead speak words that match their actions of change. For those people, privacy matters.

Unfortunately, I think industries in large scale are moving to big data with very fast speed.

You should think about it. Connected car, connected devices, online shopping etc

As we are moving our life largely to digital life, you are leaving your digital footprint everywhere.

It used to say, gasoline is the most important resources since second industry revolution. Now data will replace gasoline as most important data. There is no reverse of this trend.

 

[matrix07]

And a less impressive service at the end of the day as well... In this case the Apple Tax isn't getting you a better product. I love my iPhone but hate Apple photo products and icloud. Google is far superior on the software side for a reason. Why limit yourself, use the best of both worlds, at least here you have the option.

🤣🤣🤣

 

[matrix07]

This is why I can’t commit to putting any files 100% on the cloud vs on a local drive and also why I’m perplexed at how Apple feels 256GB is ok for base machines. After music, videos, photos, I’m well over 500GB…I can’t be the only one?

I'm using 64 GB iPhone and it's fine. I have like thousands of photo and video and 60 million of songs 😀

 

[matrix07]

I'm sorry, please tell me how you can buy "MY" Google Photos data tomorrow? I would love to know that! Your talking about audience segmentation and targeting for Ad's. None of my photo's are leaving Google or being sold which is where the privacy aspect would mater to me. Do I care if I get some targeted Ad's, no not really. I consider that my payment for using free services. Again if you don't like it, do what you do, don't use the service. There are tons of options out there, we all have a choice.

Isn't Google Photo reserved a right to sell YOUR photo for ad? Not selling data but your actual photo.

 

[matrix07]

Here's a good feature - on Google Photos I can search for my 5 year old's name and I get every photo of him from birth to current. I didn't have to tag more than a couple of them years ago, and Google has kept up with his growth. It's amazing, and it's smart enough to not mix in photos of his little brother. They looked alike as babies, but I guess Google is also considering the photo dates to figure out which kid is which.

Does iCloud photos do anything like that? I honestly don't know.

That's funny because that's exactly what I get with Photo. I just tagged 10+ or so of my wife images a couple of years ago and now it does it automatically and I have all her photo in one place. I guess if I have HomeKit camera it will notify me when my wife home right on my TV 😳

 

[matrix07]

Why would someone want to use 3-4 different apps and services to get everything Google Photos did in one? Not to mention its platform agnostic.

That's like saying why would anyone want to use Photoshop with a plug-in. 🤣 Really? Google fan is this desperate?
Because a plug in is unlimited in what it can do. That's why. I have Pixelmator Pro linked to Photo and I have all the advance functions of it right there on Photo. What's not to like?

 

[827538]

"I take it you don't have an issue with all your data being harvested and sold to 3rd party companies?" Nobody in their right mind have an issue with that because it's an obvious lie.

Do you understand how Alphabet became a $1.5tn company that sells very little to consumers?

It does it by building a profile of every user who uses their services, harvesting any data they can on said user, then selling that information to third parties so they can target advertising to them.

How is that not harvesting every shred of data on a user and selling to 3rd parties? How do you think Alphabet/Google makes its money? I thought this was common knowledge at this point? Please enlighten me if I've somehow misunderstood Google's entire business model?

 

[827538]

That's funny because that's exactly what I get with Photo. I just tagged 10+ or so of my wife images a couple of years ago and now it does it automatically and I have all her photo in one place. I guess if I have HomeKit camera it will notify me when my wife home right on my TV 😳

Yeh I thought the same, my iPhone/iCloud tags my friends and family too with a creepily high level of accuracy.

 

[falainber]

Do you understand how Alphabet became a $1.5tn company that sells very little to consumers?

It does it by building a profile of every user who uses their services, harvesting any data they can on said user, then selling that information to third parties so they can target advertising to them.

How is that not harvesting every shred of data on a user and selling to 3rd parties? How do you think Alphabet/Google makes its money? I thought this was common knowledge at this point? Please enlighten me if I've somehow misunderstood Google's entire business model?

What exactly gets sold to third parties? Go buy some/any information on anyone from Google and report back.

 

[gene731]

It was obvious frome the start this day would come. l’m glad I’ve never touched Google Photos.

Too bad Apple didn’t take the opportunity to double their iCloud storage options. I’m at 200GB and don’t wish to upgrade to 2TB.

I tried the 2TB but just way too much for my needs. So far the 200gb is working for me very well but I would love to see like maybe either a 500GB or at most a 1TB option which the 500GB (I am only speaking for my needs) as the better option of those two if Apple did ever do anything in mid range storage.

 

[Migidid]

Shouldn't you make article about how to get your files out of iCloud and to Google not other way around that is much harder to accomplish than this

 

[k27]

The people who are shown in the photos are usually not asked.
As a result, these people are exposed to various risks without their knowledge and, depending on the business model, become the product.

The people who disagree with me are obviously unaware of the risks or are selfish (or simply assume that the people in the photos have the same mindset).

 

[Prince Akeem]

I went through this process last month, and I'm sorry to say that this article hardly even skims the surface about how painful this process actually is. Here's why:

• If you have a lot of photos, Google Takeout will export them as 2GB zip files, which you have to download one by one. I had around 130 to download, which took ages. Also, your Google Takeout export only remains available for around 2 weeks before it's deleted, so you're against the clock to do the below.
• When downloading these files, you better have a MacBook that has enough storage. I have a MBP with 256GB which I ended up completely resetting so that I could have enough space to download the files.
• The killer bit of all this: when you upload the photos through Apple's Photos app, Photos essentially makes a copy of them in its Library file. This very quickly takes up any leftover space on the MacBook, at which point Photos refuses to upload them to iCloud, citing lack of storage space. I ended up having to follow some steps to create a separate partition of my hard drive with a limited amount of space, and move my Photos Library file into there. That way, Apple Photos would pick up sooner that the drive was full, and delete uploaded files from the local drive.
• If you're transitioning from an Android phone, there's extra, pretty awful news; iCloud distinguishes the date of your photos by a certain EXIF date ("DateTimeOriginal"), but Android does it by the photo's "File Created" date. This has the side effect of meaning that the Photos app thinks all of your photos were taken on the same day (i.e. the day you downloaded them), because it couldn't find a date stamp. This meant I had to buy a separate Mac app, which would go through my photos and copy the Date Created field to the relevant EXIF fields.

So just to be clear:

1. Download a couple of zip files from Google Photos
2. Unzip them and run them through a tool that will change the date stamps as above
3. Import to Photos app, wait for them to upload
4. Delete zip and unzipped files.
5. Repeat 1-4

Hopefully you can see now, this is not an easy process, and took me at least a week. It's really frustrating when you consider that there's a tool for moving your iCloud photos to Google Photos in the cloud, but not the reverse.

Thanks for the heads up! Seems like a painful process. BTW I just noticed that it appears you can also select 50 GB instead of 2 GB in Google Takeout export size. Wouldn't that have made your process faster?