How to transfer Google Photos from one account to another account

Google Photos is the most effective way to store and share your photos. It was first announced in May 2015 as a service spun off from Google+, the former social network of the search giant. It uses Google’s proprietary image recognition technology to organise photos for its users.

While the service initially offered unlimited free storage for high-quality images, Google updated its storage policy in 2020 to make the free 15GB storage that comes with every Google account shared across Drive, Gmail, and Photos. 

ALSO READ: WhatsApp HD images: How to send high quality photos on chat

As Google Photos has transformed from being a simple photo-sharing and storage platform to one where all your memories are stored, you may want to transfer all your photos from one Google account to another. By using the right tools and methods, you can transfer Google Photos from one account to another.

How to transfer Google Photos from one account to another using Takeout

Google Takeout is a tool that allows Google Photos users to extract and download all of their backed-up photos. This method not only downloads your library of photos but also downloads photos in albums. However, this method of downloading photos can take a long time if you have a lot of images or a poor internet connection.

Needless to say, you will also need to have enough storage on your hard drive to download all the photos. If you have a fast internet connection and enough storage, here’s how to use takeout to transfer Google Photos from one account to another.

Step 1: Visit https://takeout.google.com/ in your web browser

Step 2: Sign in with your Google Account and password. Use the Google account where your photo backups are saved

Step 3: On Create a new export option, click on “Deselect all” at the top right-hand corner. This will deselect all the data categories so you can select only Google Photos for export.

Step 4: Click on the check box next to Google Photos

Step 5: Click the Next step button at the bottom of the product list

Step 6: Select the delivery method option from the drop-down menu under the “Delivery method” heading
i. You can get a link sent to your email address and download it to your local storage
ii. You can automatically get the pictures uploaded to Google Drive, Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, or Box Cloud
iii. You can also schedule an automatic archiving of your photos

Step 7: Select “Send download link via email” followed by export frequency, file type, and file size and click on Create export

Step 8: Google will then create an archives list and when the archive is ready for download, you can click on the Download button.
i. This will create a ZIP file on your computer and select a destination to save the file if prompted.
ii. You can also click on the download link sent to your mailbox to download the ZIP file.

Step 9: Open the downloaded ZIP file to view all your backed-up photos and albums in the Google Photos

Step 10: Go to https://photos.google.com/ and sign in with the other account where you want to upload all your photos

Step 11: Click on Upload from the top navigation bar and select Upload from the computer

This method will only transfer images that you previously downloaded as a ZIP file but won’t automatically transfer any new images saved to the original account.

How to move Google Photos from one account to another using Partner Sharing

Partner Sharing is arguably the easiest way to transfer Google Photos from one account to another. Google Photos users can set up partner sharing using the mobile app on Android, iPhone, and iPad, and don’t necessarily need a computer. This method ensures all the photos from the original account are shared with another Google account but does not transfer albums. Here is how it works:

ALSO READ: How to update Google Play Services

Step 1: Go to https://photos.google.com/ and sign in with your Google Account

Step 2: Click on the gear icon at the top of the page. Click on the Share icon instead if you are using the mobile app

Step 3: Click Partner Sharing from the menu page

Step 4: Choose your sharing settings including the starting date and choose to share “All Photos” or “Photos of certain people.”

Step 5: Click Next to continue

Step 6: Enter a Gmail account and click Next

Step 7: Confirm the account and click Send invitation

Step 8: Accept the invite on the other account by clicking on the notification and select View invite > Accept

Step 9: You will get the option to choose whether the second account should be shared back to the original account. However, since our goal here is to transfer photos from the original account, select Not now

Step 10: Click Turn on Auto Save at the top of your Google Photos page

ALSO READ: How to use Google Photos’ ‘Real Tone’ filters on laptops and smartphones?

Step 11: Select Save all photos to save all the photos shared from the original account

Step 12: Click Done to complete the transfer of photos from one account to another

How to transfer photos from one Google account to another using Sharing Albums

Sharing Albums is another way to transfer photos from one Google account to another. This method may be time-consuming if you have a lot of albums. It will only share photos in an album and not other photos. Here’s how to get started:

Step 1: Go to http://photos.google.com/ and sign in with your Google account

Step 2: Go to an album that you want to share. You can use the Albums drop-down menu on the left side of Google Photos to select an album or view all albums.

Step 3: Click the Share button at the top of the page

Step 4: Select a method to share
i. You can invite a person using their Google account
ii. Share a link or post on social media platforms

Step 5: Go to the sharing section of the other account and click the “Download” icon to download the images from the shared album

Step 6: Now repeat this process for all the albums in the original account

You can now transfer Google Photos from one account to another using these methods. The ideal method will depend on what you are trying to do but partner sharing might turn out to be convenient for most users.