Guides
Getting your photos out of Google, written down as we work it out. Every number is dated and checked.
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How to Download All Your Google Photos to Your PC (2026)
Download all your Google Photos to a Windows PC or Mac: a few photos, a whole album, or the entire library. What works for big libraries, and how to check nothing went missing.
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Google Takeout for Google Photos: What You Actually Get (2026)
How to export Google Photos with Google Takeout, how long it takes, which archive size to pick, and what's inside the zips: folders, .json files and duplicates.
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Does rclone Still Work with Google Photos? (2026)
rclone can no longer download your whole Google Photos library. The alternatives that work, what rclone can still do, and how to back up everything with rclone through Google Drive.
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Google Photos Storage Full? What's Using It and What to Do (2026)
Why your Google storage is full, what counts and what doesn't, how to free space without losing photos, and when a copy on your own disk makes more sense than a bigger plan.
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How to Back Up Google Photos to an External Hard Drive (2026)
How to back up all your Google Photos to an external hard drive, PC, Mac or NAS, keep the backup up to date, and check that nothing is missing.
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Google Photos Takeout horror story: +300 GB in 159 archives, dead downloads, sleepless nights
159 archives, 344 GB, three days, and no way to know if it was all there. What happened, and what 95 people on r/DataHoarder told me.
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Google Photos Takeout Helper: Download & How to Use (2026)
Where to download Google Photos Takeout Helper in 2026 (GitHub, original or Neo), how to use it on Windows and Mac, and how to fix code 13.