How to Backup iCloud Photos and Videos to Google

We’ve been talking a lot lately about the possibility of leaving Google Photos for other services, mainly because it was a bit of a shock to watch this super useful free storage service spin up the subscription (once you’ve reached your 15 GB storage limit on all Google services). This, however, is the way of things. And if you still prefer the amenities of Google to, say, paying for iCloud, Apple has a new tool you can use to copy your photos and videos from its cloud service to that of its rival.

To get started, go to Apple Data and confidentiality 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 title with the same name. You will then be taken to a screen where you can choose the transfer destination (Google Photos) and select whether you just want to transfer your photos, videos or both:

You will then be asked to sign in with your Google account and authorize the Apple tool to empty the data in your photo library:

As part of the copy confirmation process, Apple notes that the transfer can take anywhere from three to seven days – ah, digital life. You will also need enough free space in your Google Account for all of your files, otherwise everything will not be copied if, or when, all of your storage space is full. Apple tries to give you a decent estimate of how much space you’ll need to clean up, but err on the side of “a little more than what you need” rather than “just on the money” if you have to do a little data pruning in your Google account.

And you’ll also want to make sure you know what gets transferred before you take any drastic action like, say, deleting your Apple account (or at least all of your previously saved photos and videos). Like apple Remarks:

• The transfer includes 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 modification of the photo is transferred and not the original version. Duplicates appear as a single photo.
• Whenever possible, photos are transferred with their albums. Videos are transferred separately, without their albums.
• Once uploaded to Google, the file names of albums and videos begin with “Copy of”.
• Some content, including shared albums, smart albums, photo stream content, live photos, some metadata, and photos and videos stored in other folders or locations, is not transferred at all.

These are a lot of stipulations, so if you’re looking to create a real archive of all the media you’ve stored in iCloud, you might want to use Apple’s “Get a copy of your data” option instead. You can then decide what to upload to Google Photos and what can be archived elsewhere. And, yes, that means you’ll be using your bandwidth to transfer, but you’ll have even more control over your data.

That said, whether you have the free space or a dummy Google Account, having a secondary backup for most of your media never hurts.