I have been using google photos for years (since it was free). Now that i'm getting more apple stuff i want to switch over to iCloud. But i have a lot of trouble importing the pictures and movies.
What i tried;
- using google takeout to export all pictures and movies. This works well, but for all pictures and movies that i got via imessage or whatsapp the metadata is gone. iCloud doesnt know when the picture was send and stores it on the day i did the import. For example, i got a picture on 12-12-2019, it was stored in my picture library on my iphone on 12-12-2019 and stored in google photos on 12-12-2019. iCloud misses the metadata and stores it on the day i'm importing. The google takeout does also exports the metadata to a separate file in .jsons. But i cannot get that reimported to the pictures somehow.
- also tried exporting using the google photos user interface (500 pictures at the time). This works, the metadata is included but gives other issues when importing to icloud again;
- apple stores pictures as HEIC, once downloaded it doesnt allow to upload these to iCloud anymore (wtf apple, its your own format?!)
- .mov files also are not allowed to be uploaded. I thought this was also a format apple used in the past, but could be that its from movies i got via whatsapp from android users.
Anyone has ran into the same? And found a fix? Now it just seems easier to keep using google photos and start paying for it
What i tried;
- using google takeout to export all pictures and movies. This works well, but for all pictures and movies that i got via imessage or whatsapp the metadata is gone. iCloud doesnt know when the picture was send and stores it on the day i did the import. For example, i got a picture on 12-12-2019, it was stored in my picture library on my iphone on 12-12-2019 and stored in google photos on 12-12-2019. iCloud misses the metadata and stores it on the day i'm importing. The google takeout does also exports the metadata to a separate file in .jsons. But i cannot get that reimported to the pictures somehow.
- also tried exporting using the google photos user interface (500 pictures at the time). This works, the metadata is included but gives other issues when importing to icloud again;
- apple stores pictures as HEIC, once downloaded it doesnt allow to upload these to iCloud anymore (wtf apple, its your own format?!)
- .mov files also are not allowed to be uploaded. I thought this was also a format apple used in the past, but could be that its from movies i got via whatsapp from android users.
Anyone has ran into the same? And found a fix? Now it just seems easier to keep using google photos and start paying for it