You've probably been there. You're staring at a decade of memories—weddings, blurry concert shots, that one sandwich you ate in Italy—and suddenly you realize they’re all trapped. They aren't "trapped," technically. Google has them. But if you want to move to iCloud, back them up to a physical hard drive, or just feel the security of having files you can actually touch, figuring out how to google photos download all photos is surprisingly annoying. It should be a big red button. It isn't.
Honestly, it feels like Google makes it just a little bit difficult on purpose. Not impossible, just tedious enough that you might give up and keep paying for that 2TB storage plan.
Most people start by trying to select photos one by one. Don't do that. You'll lose your mind. I've seen people try to shift-click through five years of data only for the browser to crash at 500 images. If you have more than a few dozen photos, the manual method is a trap. You need a real strategy.
The Google Takeout Method (The Heavy Lifter)
This is the nuclear option. If you need to google photos download all photos in one giant chunk, Google Takeout is the only official way to do it without losing your sanity. It’s a tool Google built to comply with data portability laws, and while it works, it’s clunky.
Go to takeout.google.com. You'll see a massive list of every single piece of data Google has on you. It's kind of creepy. Deselect everything. You only want "Google Photos." Once you've checked that box, you get to choose your "delivery method." Usually, people pick a download link via email.
Here is where it gets tricky: file sizes. Google asks if you want 2GB, 10GB, or 50GB zip files.
Pick the 50GB option if your internet is stable. If you choose 2GB and you have a 500GB library, Google is going to send you 250 separate emails. Imagine clicking "download" 250 times. It’s a nightmare. Stick to the larger chunks.
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One thing nobody tells you about Takeout is the JSON files. When you unzip that folder, you’re going to see a mess. Every image will have a corresponding .json file containing the metadata—GPS coordinates, timestamps, and descriptions. It looks like a cluttered disaster. If you just want the pictures, you’ll have to sort the folder by "Type" and delete the JSON files, or use a third-party script like Google Photos Takeout Helper to re-inject that data back into the image EXIF. It's a bit of a technical hurdle that most users don't expect.
Why Selecting and Downloading is Kinda Broken
Sometimes you don't want everything. You just want the "Best Of."
In the Google Photos web interface, you can select photos by day. You click the little checkmark next to the date. But there's a limit. Google usually caps these manual downloads at 500 items or about 2GB per zip. If you try to grab 2,000 photos this way, it might just hang. Or worse, it’ll download a zip file that is missing half the files because the server timed out.
If you’re on a Mac or PC, use the "Shift" key trick sparingly. Click the first photo, scroll down a bit, hold shift, and click the last one. If you try to do this for an entire year at once, the browser's RAM usage will skyrocket. It’s better to do this month-by-month if you’re avoiding Takeout.
The Mobile Trap
Don't try to google photos download all photos on your iPhone or Android. Just don't.
Mobile apps are designed for "Save to Device," which is meant for one or two photos. If you try to bulk download on a phone, the app often struggles with background processing. Your phone will get hot. The battery will drain. And often, the download will just stop if the screen turns off.
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If you absolutely must use a mobile device, use a file manager app that can hook into your Google Drive, assuming you've synced your photos there. But honestly? Use a desktop. Your time is worth more than the frustration of a mobile browser crashing.
Partner Sharing: The "Secret" Migration Path
This is a clever workaround if you're trying to move photos from one Google account to another without actually downloading them to a computer first.
- Open Google Photos on the "source" account.
- Go to Settings > Partner Sharing.
- Invite your second account.
- On the second account, accept the invite and select "Save to library."
Boom. Everything moves over internally on Google's servers. No downloading. No uploading. No bandwidth limits. It’s the fastest way to "transfer" rather than "download." Once they are in the new account, you can worry about the hard drive backup later.
Dealing with the Metadata Mess
When you finally google photos download all photos, you might notice something weird. The "Date Created" on your computer might show today's date instead of the day the photo was taken.
This happens because the file system sees a new file being created on your drive. Don't panic. The actual metadata—the "Date Taken" info—is usually still embedded inside the image. If you open the photo in a proper viewer or re-upload it to another service like Lightroom or Amazon Photos, it should still recognize the original date.
The exception is if you edited the photo in Google Photos. Sometimes, Google saves those edits in a way that requires that pesky JSON file to "marry" the data back to the image.
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Actionable Next Steps for a Clean Backup
Stop putting it off. The longer you wait, the bigger your library gets, and the harder this becomes.
First, go to your Google account and check your storage usage. If you're over 15GB, you’re likely paying for a subscription. Decide if you want to stay in the ecosystem. If you want out, start a Google Takeout request today.
Second, prepare your hardware. Don't download 100GB of photos to your "Downloads" folder if your laptop only has 10GB of space left. Plug in an external SSD. Direct the browser to download files directly to that drive.
Third, handle the zip files immediately. Don't let "archive_1.zip" sit there for six months. Unzip them, verify the folder structure, and use a duplicate finder tool like Gemini (the software, not the AI) or PhotoSweeper to clean up the inevitable doubles.
Finally, if you're doing this for security, remember the 3-2-1 rule. Three copies of your data, on two different media types, with one copy off-site. A local hard drive is great, but it can fail. Keeping your photos on a drive and in a secondary cloud like Backblaze is the only way to truly sleep soundly.
The process of a google photos download all photos mission is never as "one-click" as we want it to be. It takes a few hours of waiting for servers to process and a few more to organize the aftermath. But having your life's history in a folder you actually own? That's worth the weekend project.