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📦 Importing a Google Takeout export

Not released yet (comes after 1.3.0) Up to version 1.3.0 LibrePhotos skipped the JSON files of a Google Takeout export, so photos whose own metadata was missing ended up without a date, location or description.

Google Takeout exports your Google Photos library as zip files. Next to each photo or video it puts a small JSON file with what Google Photos knew about it: when it was taken, where, and the description you gave it there. Many exported files lack some of that in their own metadata: screenshots and images saved from other apps never had it, and a location or date you changed in Google Photos lives only in the JSON.

LibrePhotos reads these JSON files during the scan. It never changes your photos: the JSON is one more, lowest-priority source next to the file's own metadata.

Importing an export​

  1. Export Google Photos from Google Takeout and download every zip file of the export.
  2. Unzip them all into one folder inside your library (your user's scan directory, see Library Management), for example Takeout. Keep each JSON file next to its photo: LibrePhotos finds the JSON by its name and its folder.
  3. Run a Scan on the Library page.

You do not need to run a tool that copies the JSON values into the files first.

What is read​

In LibrePhotosFrom the JSONWhen
Date and timephotoTakenTimeWhen none of the file's own tags has a date. The JSON's time is in UTC and is shown in the time zone of the photo's position, or in your Default timezone when it has none (see Date rules). It wins over a date in the file name.
LocationgeoData, else geoDataExifWhen the file has no GPS position. A position of 0, 0, which Google writes for "no location", is ignored. The place name is then looked up as for any photo.
Altitudethe altitude of the same positionWith the location from the JSON.
CaptiondescriptionWhen the file has no description of its own (XMP, IPTC and EXIF come first). It becomes the caption as a description in the file does, see How a rescan treats your edits.

A location or caption you set in LibrePhotos is kept, as for any photo. Albums, people, favorites and the other fields of the JSON are not read. A JSON file larger than 512 KB or one that is not valid JSON is skipped with a warning in the logs, and the scan goes on. A JSON without photoTakenTime, such as an album's metadata.json, is not a photo's JSON and is ignored.

How the JSON is found​

Google names the JSON after the file, and LibrePhotos follows its naming:

  • IMG_1234.jpg.json, or IMG_1234.jpg.supplemental-metadata.json in newer exports;
  • for a long file name, the name before .json is cut to 46 characters, for example IMG_20180214_171835513.jpg.supplemental-metada.json or PXL_20230715_181512345.PORTRAIT.ORIGINAL-01.jp.json;
  • for a second file of the same name, IMG_1234(1).jpg, the number moves to the end: IMG_1234.jpg(1).json;
  • an edited copy, IMG_1234-edited.jpg, uses the JSON of the original, IMG_1234.jpg.json.

A file whose JSON cannot be told apart from another file's (two long names that Google cut to the same text) gets none, so no photo takes the date of another.

Changing the JSON later​

A scan reads a photo again when its JSON was changed or added after the last scan (by its modified time), as it does for an XMP sidecar. Unzipping keeps the times the files had in the export, so a JSON unzipped later can look older than that scan. To read every JSON again, use Rescan (the arrow next to Scan). The JSON files are not photos: they do not show in your library and do not count as errors.

The date rules​

The JSON's date is read by two date rules, right before the file name rule:

  • "Google Takeout JSON capture time in UTC + figure out timezone using GPS coordinates" (ID 20);
  • "Google Takeout JSON capture time in user default timezone (can't find out actual timezone)" (ID 21).

New accounts have them. After the update, an account whose rule list is still the default one of its LibrePhotos version gets them too; a list you changed (rules added, removed or moved) is left as you set it: add the two rules with Add Rule, or use Reset To Defaults. For photos you scanned before, use Apply date rules to existing photos for the dates, or Rescan for dates, locations and captions.