Apple and Google have made the two way transfer of photos and videos possible between their accounts. So far, you could transfer your iCloud Photos (images from iPhone, iPad) to Google Photos. Similarly, migrating your Google Photos to iCloud Photos is possible with a simple process. Thanks to Google and Apple, you no longer have to sit at your computer to download Google Photos and upload all of them to iCloud Photos. It’s worth noting that the transfer literally indicates that you’re copying and moving the images and videos from the Google Photos to iCloud photos.
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Before You Transfer Google Photos Data to iCloud Photos
The key requirement to make this transfer happen is ample storage space in your iCloud account. Since Apple offers only 5GB free storage when you create an Apple ID, which may not be enough for your Google Photos. So you’ll need to buy additional storage, if you haven’t, to make space for moving a copy of the pictures and videos from Google Photos. There are a couple of things you need to consider before you copy and move your Google Photos to the iCloud Photos. Here’s what you need to know:
- Copying and moving photos and videos doesn’t delete them from Google Photos.
- The iCloud Photos section will create a copy of the Google Photos data and label the album as ‘Imported from Google’ in the Photos app.
- The iCloud Photos supports transfer of select photo file formats (JPEG, HEIC, PNG, GIF, TIFF, AVIF and BMP) and video file formats (MP4 and MOV)
- Other unsupported file types of photos (RAW) and videos are transferred to the general iCloud Drive storage.
Also Read: Best Tips and Tricks to use Albums Efficiently in Google Photos
Transfer Google Photos to iCloud Photos
The Google Takeout link offers the option to export data from all support Google services. However, you don’t need to bother with that page. Instead, you can head to the Takeout page meant specifically for Google Photos. Before you start, it helps to keep your Apple ID details handy. Here’s how to proceed:
1. Open the Google Photos Takeout page in a web browser on your PC or Mac.
Visit Google Photos Takeout Page
2. Tap Continue button under the ‘Choose the data you want to copy’ section.
3. You’ll be asked to verify your Google Account to sign in to the correct one. Also, permit your account to access Google Photos to process the Takeout.
4. From the ‘Move to’ drop-down, select Apple – iCloud Photos and click the Continue button. That’ll take you to Apple ID login page.
5. Log into iCloud with your Apple ID. The iCloud page will ask you to permit Google Takeout to access your Apple ID information to add photos and videos to iCloud. Tap on Allow to proceed.
6. Tap on Agree and Continue to start the images and videos export process from Google Photos to iCloud Photos.
7. The final screen will show the status of your Exports from Google Photos to other third-party services. In this case, it’d be iCloud. You can check the status of your export on the Google Takeout’s Manage page.
Depending on the size of the photos and videos you export, the process of export might take hours or days. You’ll get an email when Google completes the export copy of the photos and videos from Google Photos.
Things to Remember For Exporting Google Photos to iCloud Photos
The transfer of photos and videos between Google Photos and iCloud Photos seems like a straightforword process. However, there are a few things you’ll need to keep in mind. And that’s not limited to the storage space in your iCloud account.
Keeping photos synced with iCloud on your iPhone and iPad is normal. However, this transfer of Google Photos to iCloud means that a copy of this export will also appear on your iPhone and iPad. With the album titled ‘Imported from Google’ in the Photos app, it will take a significant space on iPhone or iPad.
Also, this process only tranfers or migrates your Google Photos data and doesn’t really sync them with iCloud Photos. So a copy of those photos and videos will remain in your Google Photos. But that means, every new photo or video after the export process won’t be part of it. You’ll need to manually download and move them to iCloud photos.
During the entire process, the transfer or move will carry a timestamp on the Exports page of Google Takeout and also the ‘Imported from Google’ folder on your devices. So it’ll be relatively easy to figure out which new photos weren’t part of the transfer or migration to iCloud Photos.
Also Read: How to Free Up iCloud Storage
The Space Constraint
Copying and moving photos between cloud storage services is mostly because of the space shortage. But if you plan to free up storage from your Google Account, you might be paying for the iCloud storage to Apple. Without getting into a deeper comparions, Google account bags you 15GB of free Google Drive storage. That seems generous against the paltry 5GB free storage with Apple ID. But it does make sense to keep all your photos in one place, your iCloud storage.
