Apple has added a service that lets you automatically transfer photos, videos, and albums from your iCloud Photo Library to Google Photos (via MacRumors). The feature has a support document outlining the procedure, which simply entails going to privacy.apple.com, logging in, and going through the “transfer a copy of your data” process. Apple says the transfer will take between three days to a week.
Some things won’t transfer: Apple says shared albums, smart albums, photo stream content, live photos, some metadata, and media that isn’t stored in your iCloud Photo Library won’t come along for the ride. The part about Live Photos is especially eyebrow-raising. iPhones take Live Photos by default, and Apple doesn’t make it clear if the entire picture will be left behind, or just the video clip surrounding it.
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For what it’s worth, the transfer tool tells me 10,793 of my photos will be transferred, which is the exact number of pictures in my library. Given that over 2,500 of those are Live, it would seem Apple is planning on transferring them, but we did reach out to clarify. At the time of writing, we haven’t heard back.
Apple says the feature won’t remove anything from your iCloud Photo Library; it will simply make a copy of it, so you’ll still need to manually delete things if you no longer want them stored in iCloud. Additionally, the feature is currently only available to people in Australia, Canada, the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
If you’re looking to make the jump from iPhone to Android or just want to use Google Photos, this tool should provide an easy way to quickly transfer all of your photos to the service without having to reupload them yourself. A few clicks, and your photos will be on their way to their new home. Just make sure you have enough Google storage space.
