Move from Google Photos to Aubora

1. Request your export with Google Takeout

1. Go to takeout.google.com, signed in to the Google account that holds your photos.
2. Untick every product except Google Photos (the Deselect all link at the top clears them in one click). Leave all its albums selected so nothing is left out.
3. Click Next step.
4. Delivery method: choose Send download link via email. (Takeout can also deliver to Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, or Box, but the archives arrive zipped, so you'd still have to download, unzip, and upload them again.)
5. Export type: One-time archive.
6. File type and size: Zip files, with an Archive size of 50 GB. The larger size means fewer archives to download; a big library is still split into several.
7. Click Create export. Google emails you when it's ready: minutes for a small library, a day or more for a large one.
8. Download every archive. The links expire after about 7 days, and each archive can be downloaded 5 times at most.

Takeout exports the version Google stores: photos backed up in Storage saver come out compressed, photos in Original quality come out as they were uploaded.

2. Unzip all the archives into one folder

This is the step that keeps your locations and dates. A photo and its JSON file can land in different archives, so unzip every archive into the same folder, letting the Takeout folders merge into one.

Double-clicking each archive doesn't do this: it creates separate folders (Takeout, Takeout 2…). Use one command instead, with the archives in your Downloads folder.

On a Mac, open Terminal (Applications → Utilities → Terminal) and run:

cd ~/Downloads
for f in takeout-*.zip; do unzip -n "$f" -d ~/GooglePhotos; done

On Windows, open PowerShell (Start menu, type "PowerShell") and run:

Get-ChildItem "$HOME\Downloads\takeout-*.zip" | ForEach-Object { Expand-Archive $_.FullName -DestinationPath "$HOME\GooglePhotos" -Force }

Either way, this creates GooglePhotos/Takeout/Google Photos/ in your home folder, with one folder per year (Photos from 2019…) and one per album. Each photo sits next to its JSON file, for example IMG_1234.JPG and IMG_1234.JPG.supplemental-metadata.json (older exports use IMG_1234.JPG.json).

Keep the photos and their JSON files together, with their original names: don't rename, sort, or separate them, and don't delete the JSON files. Aubora finds each photo's JSON by its name, in the same folder. Keep the zip archives until you've checked the result (step 6).

3. Optional: avoid duplicates

Takeout can put the same photo both in its year folder and in the folder of each album that contains it; Aubora would then show it twice. To check, open an album folder and look for one of its photos in the matching Photos from … folder. If it's there too, you can leave the album folders out and index only the year folders.

If you edited photos in Google Photos, the export can also contain both the original and the edited copy (its name ends in -edited, or the equivalent in your language). Both are indexed.

4. Put the folder on your storage

• kDrive, pCloud, or Dropbox: upload the Google Photos folder as it is, with the provider's desktop app or website. A large library takes a while to upload.
• Your computer: leave the folder where it is, or move it to the disk you want; Aubora indexes a local folder too.

5. Point Aubora at it

In Aubora, open the library's Source & connection and connect your storage, then click Choose folders, pick the Google Photos folder (or just the year folders) with Browse…, and click Continue to indexing. The quick start guide covers each provider in detail.

What Aubora takes from the JSON files:

• the location (geoData, or geoDataExif when the first is empty), so the photo appears on the map;
• the date taken (photoTakenTime), so the photo sorts at the right date.

It uses them only when the photo itself lacks that information; the photo's own data wins otherwise. It recognizes the different names Takeout gives these files, including the .supplemental-metadata.json ones, the (1) suffix of duplicate names, and the shortened names of long files.

Google's descriptions, favorites, album names, and the names you gave to faces aren't imported. Aubora groups faces again on your computer, and you name each person once. Videos aren't indexed and stay in your storage.

6. Check the result, then decide about Google

1. Let the first scan finish, then open the Map: the photos taken with a location should be there.
2. Spot-check a few dates in the Gallery, especially old photos and photos received from other people.
3. When you're done, you can delete the zip archives. To free up your Google storage, delete the photos in Google Photos itself.

Troubleshooting

Still stuck? What to do if you're stuck