From Google Photos to Google Drive

[torbjornhb]

Hi.
I've been using Google Photos for years, and really love the advanced search function and organization. I've got about 80 000 photos stored after I uploaded all my photos from an external hard drive. On the external hard drive the photos was partly sorted into folders which got sorted on date when I uploaded them to Google Photos.


As much as I love Google Photos, I don't feel that i have control of my photos because it's so difficult to export all the photos. The only option is Take Out which isn't very user friendly.

I started to think that I would have better control of the backup/photos if I could upload all the folders to Google Drive, get these photos to show in Google Photos, and then use Google Photos from "this date" and the future for synchronizing photos. Then I can rather download the latest 500 photos and put them into folders which I then upload to Google Drive.

Does this make sense? I guess I would have to delete all the photos I have in Google Photos first.

 

[chown33]

This is the kind of thing where I'd do a small test run first.

First, you'll need to create a new account, or identity, or whatever, on Google. This is so you can make completely new Google Photos and Google Drive storage areas, that have no association with your current photos.

Then, pick 20 to 25 photos, over a range of dates, and put them on Google Photos. You now have a very small test version of your 80k photo collection.

At this point, you can go through whatever processes or procedures you intend to use on your 80k collection. The whole idea is to try things out on a small number of photos, work out the problems, write down the exact steps, then confirm the results, all without any risk or even use of your 80k collection.

Writing down the exact steps is often overlooked. Trust me, you won't want to be guessing, improvising, or going solely by memory when you're trying to safely move 80k of anything.

There may be other approaches, but this is how I'd test out the idea.

 

[torbjornhb]

This is the kind of thing where I'd do a small test run first.

First, you'll need to create a new account, or identity, or whatever, on Google. This is so you can make completely new Google Photos and Google Drive storage areas, that have no association with your current photos.

Then, pick 20 to 25 photos, over a range of dates, and put them on Google Photos. You now have a very small test version of your 80k photo collection.

At this point, you can go through whatever processes or procedures you intend to use on your 80k collection. The whole idea is to try things out on a small number of photos, work out the problems, write down the exact steps, then confirm the results, all without any risk or even use of your 80k collection.

Writing down the exact steps is often overlooked. Trust me, you won't want to be guessing, improvising, or going solely by memory when you're trying to safely move 80k of anything.

There may be other approaches, but this is how I'd test out the idea.

Thanks a lot 🙂
Yes I actually have an extra account where I can try this. Absolutely agree with you, but didn't think of it as an option before you mentioned it. Thanks 🤗

 

[tizeye]

With 80k photos have you thought about NAS, creating your own cloud, eliminating Google photos storage subscription? You would have backup, access, sharing and a photos program. I know Synology Photos was introduces this year combining/replacing 2 other programs. Something to look into.

 

[torbjornhb]

With 80k photos have you thought about NAS, creating your own cloud, eliminating Google photos storage subscription? You would have backup, access, sharing and a photos program. I know Synology Photos was introduces this year combining/replacing 2 other programs. Something to look into.

Thanks 🙂
That's a great idea. I've been thinking of it, but never tried. To be honest ikke been so afraid of losing any of the photos in Google Photos, and have used so much time and energy trying to find a way to sort them. This holiday i kind of ended up thinking that I might just let all the old photos be good memories and try not to bother shop much about them. Then I can focus more on the photos from newer date,mainly from enten i first started to use iCloud in 2016.

But the 80000 photos collection would be nice to have safely some other place than Google Photos, and roughly sorted into folders. That's why I was thinking about Drive. You're solution might be even better 🙂