Apple provides a convenient way to transfer your photos and videos from Google Photos to iCloud Photos. You can do this by visiting the Google Takeout website, following the instructions to export your Google Photos, and selecting "Apple - iCloud Photos" as the destination. After signing in to your Apple account and granting permission, the transfer process will begin, making it quick and easy to move your media.
However, any metadata edits made inside Google Photos—such as date, location, description, and favorites—will not be preserved during the transfer. If you need to transfer Google Photos files along with their metadata to iCloud, this article will guide you through the solution.
Why Isn't Metadata Preserved?
Google Photos stores edited metadata (such as date, location, description, favorites, and keywords) in separate .json files, while iCloud Photos embeds metadata directly within the iCloud Photo Library. Unfortunately, the standard transfer process does not read metadata from the .json files or apply it to your photos in iCloud.
To resolve this issue, we recommend using a third-party application - Photo Exifer, which merges metadata from .json files into the corresponding image and video files before uploading them to iCloud.
Steps to Transfer Google Photos Files with Metadata to iCloud
Step 1: Download Google Photos with JSON Files via Google Takeout
1. Visit Google Takeout and log in to your Google account.
2. Click "Deselect all" under the "Select data to include" section.
3. Select Google Photos, then choose all albums or specific albums to download.
4. Download the exported data as a .zip file (Send download link by email).
5. Unzip the file to access the images, videos, and corresponding .json metadata files.
Step 2: Merge Google Photos JSON Metadata with Photo Exifer
1. Download and install Photo Exifer on your Mac. Open Photo Exifer and click Quick Action -> Merge Google Takeout JSON files to photos.
2. Select the Google Takeout folder containing your images, videos, and .json files. Photo Exifer will automatically merge the metadata from the .json files into the corresponding photos and video
Step 3: Import Google Photos into iCloud
Once the metadata has been successfully merged, you can import your Google Photos into iCloud:
• If iCloud Photos is enabled in the Apple Photos app, simply open Photos and import the images.
• If iCloud Photos is not enabled, go to the iCloud website and manually upload the photos.
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