Google Photos to Lightroom CC

[BradSopkow]

I currently have all my photos in Google Photos, on their cloud. I want to import all my photos into this new Lightroom CC. How do I do this?

[Bill Sprague]

Interesting question!!

In photos.google.com, select your images.  In the upper right there is a menu (three vertical dots) where you can select download.  A shift+d does it too.  That will put your google photos on your computer as JPEGS.  On my computer they were put in a "photos.ZIP" file and I had to "extract" them. 

With them now on your computer, you can then import them into Lightroom CC using the add photos button. 

For my little test, I limited it to a few image files and it worked well and quickly.

Good luck and have fun moving your photos. 

Bill

[slaading · Accepted solution]

I suggest an alternative to Bill's option.

While this option is okay for a small amount of photos (Google Photos won't let you download more than 500 files at a time), you should instead use Google Takeout service: https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout

Click "Select none" then select "Google Photo", choose your export destination (Cloud services or links in an email). Wait. Done !

Now, import to LR.

The dream would be to have a plug-in that just let you browse/organise/edit your Google Photos directly from LR, but I haven't found it yet. Help!

[Bill Sprague]

Thanks for posting an alternative.  I didn't know Google had that.

[kram0703]

google photo is not popping up on mine... is there a way to get it to show up there?

[charlottesweb47]

I tried the Takeout option but it didn't work. 

[xzkatmyer]

Anyone can think of any other way for this?

[mc901 · Accepted solution]

You could download Google Drive's companion app so the whole of Google Drive synchronises with your desktop; including Google Photos. Then set the Google Photos folder up to sync with Lightroom.

[bbchops]

I can confirm this works pretty flawlessly with Lightroom Classic CC, but I'm still not completely sure how to sync to Lightroom CC. I have Google Drive on my Mac and have set it to sync the contents of my Google Photos account (~150 GB) down to my Mac. In Lightroom Classic CC I imported the Google Photos folder, leaving the photos in their current location. I'm not sure where to go from here.

It appears that my photos I have in Lightroom Classic CC have to be added to a "Collection" before they can be sync'd to Lightroom CC. I tried using a smart collection to do it-- all photos dated 2015, for example--but the sync option is not available for smart collections. It is only available for regular collections (and slide shows?). Adding all of my photos to one collection seems clunky and organizing 30K+ photos into regular collections seems too time-consuming. Am I missing something?

Ultimately, my goal is to migrate all of my photos from Google Photos to Adobe Lightroom CC and eliminate the Google storage charge I am paying each month. I realize I'm scope-creeping this thread a little, but I think anyone who asks the initial question will want to know these details too.

[Scott2257]

Please ignore my post

[Bill Sprague]

Cost for an extra TB of space is $9.99 a month. 

[Reid Anderson]

This is what I did. It works quickly and easily. If you don't want to sync all your files and folders you can just choose Google Photos during setup.

Good call mc901

[Per Thege]

Hi, GPS data is lost if you try to export from Google Photos to LR as far as I have noticed. Even with take out.

Per

[wwwrico]

If you export from Google Photos onto you PC, import the file into Light Room, and then export the image (perhaps with a watermark) GPS data is preserved. For example, here is my San Francisco Man.

[the_gomez]

I do it this way - I sync my gogle drive to my computer then use those files to upload

https://support.google.com/photos/answer/6193313#zippy=%2Cwhat-you-need-to-back-up-photos-videos

[the_gomez]

So yeah I'm an idiot.  I forgot I used Google takeaway and put the folder on my Google drive.

[Per Thege]

Thank you for your respons. Will try your suggestion.