How do I Backup Google Photos?

Google Photos stores all your precious photos in the Cloud. But, what happens if Google Photos has an issue that loses your photos, your Google account password is hacked, or you need to migrate services?

Here are three ways you can backup your Google Photos in 2020:

Takeout is Google’s tool for users to download data from their products: including Google Photos.

The tool is simple: select the data you want to export. Then, in a few hours or possibly days, Google will email you links to download your data. For example if you have 1,000 5MB photos you will get an email with 3 download links of 2 gigabyte in size.

If you have average residential WiFi downloading gigabytes of data will require patience: on a 18Mbps connection, the US average, it will take roughly 45 minutes if no one else is using the WiFi. Also, be sure to stay organized because you need to remember to download all the zip files and also ensure each download completed successfully. Finally, be sure to save the files somewhere safe like an SD card or external hard disk (not your Downloads folder!).

Learn more about Takeout on the “Download your data” Google support doc

If you are tech savvy and know how to use the command line then rclone is useful for downloading your Google Photos. Unlike Google Takeout rclone copies the photos directly to your disk or SD card without a zip file. This makes it easy to visually verify the photos through your file explorer without extracting the images. Also, rclone downloads incrementally so you can start/stop the backup process without losing backup progress.

Learn more at the rclone Google Photos

Clone Camel is a service that sends you an SD card, yes in the mail with a stamp, loaded with a backup of your Google Photo images. You just click a few buttons and Clone Camel takes care of the rest. All you need to do is wait for a mail delivery, and as a famous computer scientist once said:

Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway.

In 2020 the delivery van replaced the stations wagon and the SD card replaced tapes. But, the idea is sound. Don’t let slow home internet or technical complexity stand keep you from taking steps to protect your precious memories.

Try out Clone Camel today and get a backup of your Google Photos delivered to your home. Enter the code CCBLOG01 for 10% off.