We’ve been talking a lot lately about leaving Google Photos for other services, mainly because it’s been a bit of a shock to look at this extremely useful storage subscription (once you reach your 15 GB storage limit in all Google services) So is the way of things. And if you still prefer Google’s convenience rather than paying for iCloud, Apple has a new tool that lets you copy photos and videos from its cloud service to its competitor.
To get started, go to Apple’s Data and privacy website and sign in with your Apple ID. You will see a screen that looks like this:
Click on the “Request to transfer a copy of your data” link under the similar name. You will then be taken to a screen where you can select the upload destination (Google Photos) and choose whether you only want to upload your photos, videos or both:
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You’ll then be asked to sign in with your Google Account and allow Apple’s tool to dump data into your photo library:
As part of the confirmation process for the copy, Apple notes that it can take up to three to seven days before the transfer is complete – alas, the digital life. You also need enough space in your Google Account for all your files, otherwise you will not copy when all your storage space is full. Apple tries to give you a good estimate of how much space you need to clean up, but stray to the side of ‘a little more than you need’ than ‘right to the money’ if you have to do it prune some data in your Google Account.
And you also need to make sure you know what is being transferred before taking a drastic step, such as deleting your Apple account (or at least all your previously saved photos and videos). Like Apple notes:
- The transfer contains copies of photos and videos that you store in iCloud Photos, associated with your Apple ID. Formats include: .jpg, .png, .webp, .gif, some RAW files, .mpg, .mod, .mmv, .tod, .wmv, .asf, .avi, .divx, .mov, .m4v ,. 3gp, .3g2, .mp4, .m2t, .m2ts, .mts, and .mkv files.
- Only the most recent photo edit is transferred, not the original version. Duplicates appear as just one photo.
- Where possible, photos are transferred with their albums. Videos are streamed separately, without their albums.
- After it’s transferred to Google, the filename of albums and videos starts with ‘Copy From’.
- Some content – including shared albums, smart albums, photo stream content, live photos, some metadata, and photos and videos stored in other folders or locations – are not transferred at all.
These are a lot of terms, so if you want to create a real archive of all the media you’ve stored in iCloud, you can use the “Get a copy of your data” option from Apple instead. You can then decide what you want to upload to Google Photos and what you need to archive elsewhere. And yes, this means that you will use your bandwidth to perform the transfers, but that you will have even more control over your data.
That said, if it’s a free space – or a dummy Google Account – that has a secondary backup for most of your media, it’s never going to hurt.