Takeout import

Google Takeout lets you download your Google Photos. Imagory can browse the export and use the extra information Google includes.

Get your export

1. Request your Google Photos export at takeout.google.com.
2. Download the zip files when Google says they are ready.
3. Extract all the zip files into one folder. Imagory cannot read zip files yet, so they must be extracted first.
4. In Imagory, choose Add source… and pick that folder. See Sources.

What Imagory reads

Next to each photo, Google stores a small JSON file. Imagory reads these from it:

• the date the photo was taken;
• the place (location), when there is one;
• the caption you wrote;
• whether it is a favourite;
• the people you tagged in Google Photos;
• when the photo was added to Google Photos.

Imagory only copies names that are already in the export. It does no face recognition. You can search and filter by person, and the sidebar has a People section.

What is skipped

• The Trash folder is skipped.
• The Archive folder is imported like any other.
• Edited photos (-edited) are shown as photos of their own, with the date of the original.

How dates are chosen

For a Takeout source, Imagory uses the first date it can find, in this order: the Takeout JSON, the photo’s own EXIF date, a date in the file name (such as IMG_20190131_235959), and finally the file’s modified time. For a plain folder, the Takeout step is left out.

Photos with no date at all go into an “Unknown date” section at the end of the grid.

Tidying up

A Takeout export is messy, with a JSON file next to every photo and the same photo in several album folders. To get a tidy copy, see Takeout cleanup.