Migrating your photo library is one of those tasks that sounds simple and turns out to be genuinely complicated. Done wrong, you lose timestamps, GPS coordinates, or entire albums. Done right, you get a clean, complete copy of years of memories that can go anywhere you want.
This guide covers the full process: why people migrate, how to export from Google Photos and iCloud without losing metadata, the pitfalls that trip people up, and how to verify your copy is actually complete before you delete anything from the original service.
Why People Migrate Their Photos
The reasons have gotten more varied over the past few years:
Storage costs. Google’s free 15 GB fills up quickly across Gmail, Drive, and Photos. Apple’s free 5 GB is even less. When Google One or iCloud+ prices increase, or when a storage plan lapses, the financial calculus shifts.
Privacy policy changes. Terms of service updates that expand AI training on user content, new “personalization” features that require broader data access, or policy changes that remove privacy protections previously in place.
Platform distrust. Some users want to keep their personal memories outside systems that use them to improve AI models or deliver advertising.
Account security. A compromised Google or Apple account can mean losing access to years of photos. Having an independent copy eliminates that single point of failure.
Service reliability. Cloud services occasionally go down, lose data (rarely, but it has happened), or make interface changes that break established workflows.
Whatever the reason, the process is the same: export, verify, transfer, confirm — and only then, if you choose, remove the originals.
The Metadata Problem You Need to Understand First
Before you export anything, you need to understand why metadata preservation is the trickiest part of this process.
Your photos contain two types of data: the image itself and metadata — information about the image, stored either in the file or alongside it.
EXIF metadata is embedded directly in the image file. It includes: camera make and model, aperture and shutter speed, GPS coordinates, timestamp, and lens information. When EXIF data is intact, photos sort correctly by date, show up in correct locations on maps, and retain their full historical context.
Platform-specific metadata is stored in the service’s own database. This includes: album membership, titles and descriptions you’ve added, favorites, shared album associations, and face tags. This data is not stored in the image file — it lives in Google’s or Apple’s system.
The critical problem with Google Photos exports in particular: Google stores timestamps for some photos not in the EXIF data but in separate JSON sidecar files. If you export your photos through Google Takeout and then import just the image files into another service, you may find that photos are timestamped incorrectly — often showing the date of export rather than the date of capture.
This is not a minor issue. Thousands of photos out of chronological order makes browsing memories essentially useless.
Exporting from Google Photos
Step 1: Use Google Takeout
Go to takeout.google.com and sign in. Click “Deselect all,” then scroll down and select only “Google Photos.” Click “Next step.”
Choose your export settings:
- File type: .zip is easiest for smaller libraries; .tgz works better for large libraries on systems that support it
- Archive size: Set to 50 GB if available — fewer files to download is easier to manage
- Delivery: “Send download link via email” is most reliable
Click “Create export.” Google will process your library and send you a download link when ready. For large libraries, this can take hours to days.
Step 2: Download and Organize
Download all the zip archives Google sends you. Extract them into a single organized folder structure. Inside, you’ll find folders labeled with album names and dates, each containing image files (.jpg, .heic, .mp4, etc.) and corresponding JSON files (.json) for photos that need them.
Do not delete the JSON files. They contain timestamp data that may be critical for preserving correct photo dates.
Step 3: Fix Timestamps (If Needed)
This is the step most guides skip, and it causes the most problems.
If you’ve looked at your exported photos and the dates are wrong, you have a metadata mismatch. The solution requires a tool that reads the JSON sidecar files and writes the timestamps back into the EXIF data of each corresponding image.
ExifTool (command-line, free, cross-platform) can do this at scale. The command to sync timestamps from Google’s JSON files to EXIF data is:
exiftool -r -d %s -tagsfromfile "%d/%F.json" "-DateTimeOriginal<PhotoTakenTimeTimestamp" -overwrite_original .Run this from inside your extracted Takeout folder. ExifTool will process each image, read its corresponding JSON file, and write the correct timestamp into the image’s EXIF data.
Metapho (Mac) and Google Photos Takeout Date Fixer (a community-built tool) are graphical alternatives if you prefer not to use the command line.
After running timestamp repair, verify a sample of photos. Open 10–20 images in a photo viewer and confirm that the “date taken” matches what you’d expect from when the photo was captured.
Step 4: Album Structure
Google Takeout preserves album names as folder names but doesn’t maintain the relationship between albums and photos inside them — a photo that was in three albums appears only in the folder for one of them (or in the “Photos from YYYY” folder if it wasn’t explicitly organized).
If album structure matters to you, audit the exported folders before migrating. Some destination services let you import folder structures as albums, which partially recovers the organization. Others require manual album reconstruction.
Exporting from iCloud
Option 1: iCloud.com Download
Go to icloud.com, sign in, and click Photos. Select photos you want to download (or select all with Ctrl+A / Cmd+A), then click the download button.
For large libraries, this is impractical — iCloud.com has limits on how many photos you can download at once, and the download process is slow.
Option 2: Mac Photos App
If you have a Mac, open the Photos app with iCloud Photos sync enabled. Go to Photos → Preferences → iCloud and ensure “Download Originals to this Mac” is selected. Wait for all originals to download (the progress bar at the bottom of the window shows sync status).
Once all originals are on your Mac, export them: File → Export → Export Unmodified Original. This preserves EXIF metadata and downloads the original files in their original format (including RAW files if you shoot in RAW). You can choose whether to include JSON metadata sidecars and whether to preserve folder structure.
This is the most reliable method for complete, metadata-intact exports from iCloud.
Option 3: iPhone or iPad
For smaller exports, you can use the Files app and export to a local drive or use the native sharing feature. This is workable for a few hundred photos but not for a library of thousands.
Before You Delete Anything From the Original Service
This is the most important section. Do not remove photos from Google or iCloud until you have completed all of the following:
1. Verify the count. Count the total number of photos and videos in your original library. Count the total in your exported copy. They should match (or be within a small margin that you can explain — some services exclude certain file types from export, or LivePhoto pairs appear as two files on export).
2. Spot-check dates. Open 20–30 photos across different years and confirm dates match expectations.
3. Verify a sample of albums. If album organization matters to you, check that key albums are intact in the destination.
4. Confirm GPS data. Open a few photos and check that location information is present. Map-based browsing won’t work if GPS coordinates were stripped during export.
5. Check video files. Video is often handled separately in exports. Confirm that videos are included and playable.
6. Test the destination service. Before committing, upload a small sample batch to your destination service and verify it handles the files as expected — correct dates, thumbnails generating correctly, GPS working.
Only after all of this should you consider removing files from the original service.
Choosing Where to Move Next
Your options broadly fall into three categories:
Private cloud storage. Services like daftei that store your files encrypted at rest without training AI models on your content. These give you accessible cloud storage without the privacy tradeoffs of the major platforms. Daftei offers 5 GB free with unlimited storage on Pro plans at $5.99/month or $44.99/year, with TLS 1.3 in transit and AES-256 at rest. You can access your photos on iOS, Android, and web. Your content is never used to train third-party AI, and the service doesn’t show ads or sell data.
Local storage with backup. An external hard drive plus a NAS (Network Attached Storage) device at home, backed up offsite. Maximum control, no ongoing subscription, but requires you to manage the hardware and backup routine yourself.
Self-hosted cloud. Tools like Immich or Photoprism run on your own server or NAS and give you a Google Photos-like interface backed by hardware you control. More privacy control, more technical complexity.
Another mainstream service. Moving from Google to iCloud or vice versa may solve your specific issue (cost, a specific privacy policy) while keeping the convenience of a major platform’s AI organization tools.
There’s no universal right answer. The choice depends on how much you value privacy over convenience, whether you want to manage hardware, and how much you’re willing to spend.
The Timeline to Do This Correctly
Rushing a photo migration is how things go wrong. A realistic timeline for a medium-large library (20,000–50,000 photos):
- Week 1: Request Google Takeout export or prepare for iCloud export. Wait for Google’s processing.
- Week 2: Download archives, extract, run ExifTool timestamp fix on Google exports. Initial spot-check.
- Week 3: Upload to destination. Wait for processing and thumbnail generation. Full verification pass.
- Week 4: Final count verification, album checks, GPS checks. Decision on whether to remove originals.
If the library is larger, add time for each step. The metadata repair step in particular can take several hours for very large libraries.
The temptation to skip the verification steps is real — the export looks complete, so it probably is, right? The metadata problems often aren’t visible until you’re looking at photos sorted by wrong dates in the destination service, months after you’ve deleted the originals from Google.
Take the time to verify. Irreversible deletion deserves careful confirmation first.
If you’re looking for a destination that keeps your migrated photos private, accessible across devices, and free from AI training, daftei is available at /app/login.