FixMyTakeout

Import a Google Takeout export into Apple Photos on a Mac

Photos on a Mac imports a folder in one pass and can turn its subfolders into albums. Apple does not say which date it reads from a file, so a fixed export carries the capture date in two places: the standard EXIF tags and the file's own modified date.

As at 29 September 2026, for the Photos user guide for Mac and Apple's transfer page.

Import menuFile > Import, then Review for Import
Date tag Photos readsNot documented by Apple
LocationEmbedded GPS, shown on the map

Import the fixed folder with File > Import

  1. Fix the export with FixMyTakeout, then double-click each fixmytakeout-part- zip in Finder. The Mac's own Archive Utility keeps the modified date the zip gives every file.
  2. Open Photos and choose File > Import.
  3. Select the unzipped folder (or several files) and click Review for Import.
  4. Leave the Album pop-up set to Library if you selected a folder that contains other folders. Apple's guide states that you cannot import a group of folders into an album.
  5. Tick Keep Folder Organization so each "Photos from" year and each album folder becomes its own album.
  6. Click Import All New Photos, or select some and click Import [number] Selected.

The imported items appear in the Imports album and in the Photos album, alongside any albums created from the folders. Dragging a single folder from Finder onto Photos also works and creates a new album matching the folder name.

Steps from Apple's Import from storage devices and Overview of importing pages.

Decide whether Photos copies the files

Photos > Settings > General has a checkbox, Copy items to the Photos library. With it on, Photos makes its own copy of every file inside the library package and you can delete the unzipped folder afterward. With it off, the library only references the files where they sit, and Apple notes that items kept outside the library are not automatically uploaded to iCloud Photos. For an export you want in iCloud, leave the setting on and keep the unzipped folder until the import finishes.

Setting described on Apple's Photos settings page.

Which date Photos uses

Apple's documentation says only that the Info window shows the date or time the photo or video was taken, and that you can change it with Image > Adjust Date and Time. It does not name the EXIF tag Photos reads, what it does when DateTimeOriginal is missing, or how it dates a video.

FixMyTakeout covers both readings. Every JPEG, HEIC, PNG, WebP and TIFF gets EXIF DateTimeOriginal and CreateDate with the UTC offset, videos get the QuickTime creation dates and Apple's own Keys:CreationDate in local time, and every file's modified date is set to the capture time when you unzip. Double-clicking a part in Finder sets both the modified and the created date of every file to the capture time (checked with Archive Utility on macOS 15), so the file dates agree with the tags inside.

If you corrected dates by hand in Google Photos, choose "Always use Google's" in the tool's options before you run the fix. Otherwise the camera's own date is kept when it agrees with Google's apart from a time zone.

Apple's See photo and video information page.

Location and captions

Apple confirms that Photos reads embedded GPS: if your camera recorded a position, or you added one, Photos can show the photo on a map. A fixed export writes GPS latitude and longitude from Google's geoData whenever the file has none, so photos you placed in Google Photos appear under Places. A Google position of exactly 0, 0 is treated as no location and nothing is written.

Photos has a Caption field, but Apple does not document which embedded tag fills it on import. FixMyTakeout writes your Google Photos caption to both ImageDescription and XMP dc:description, the two tags most apps read, and the caption also appears in the description column of fixmytakeout-report.csv if you need to check one.

Apple's Find photos and videos by location and Add titles, captions, and more pages.

Live Photos

Takeout exports an iPhone Live Photo as a HEIC or JPG still plus an MP4 or MOV with the same name, for example IMG_1976.HEIC and IMG_1976.MP4, and only the still has a JSON file. FixMyTakeout gives the video the still's date and location and keeps both files, with matching names, in the same folder. Apple does not document how Photos treats such a pair on import, so this page makes no claim that the two are rejoined into one Live Photo; expect to see the still and a short video side by side and check a pair after importing.

Google's own transfer to iCloud Photos

Google Takeout can send a library straight to iCloud Photos without a download. You start it in Takeout, choose "Apple - iCloud Photos", sign in to your Apple Account and tap Allow. Apple's page sets out the conditions:

  • iCloud Photos and iCloud Drive must be on, with enough storage for the whole library.
  • Not available with Advanced Data Protection, or for child accounts or Managed Accounts.
  • The transfer takes between several hours and a few days.
  • JPEG, HEIC, PNG, GIF, TIFF, BMP and most MP4 and MOV files are transferred. RAW files and other unsupported types go to iCloud Drive instead.
  • Motion Photos, Live Photos and Memories are not transferred.
  • Everything lands in an album named "Import from Google" with the transfer date.
  • File name, description, file type and location are carried across.

Google's own page adds that manually edited metadata, such as comments added to a photo, is not transferred, and neither is the video portion of Motion Photos and Live Photos, the Locked Folder or the Trash. Google also lists child, work or school and Advanced Protection accounts as unable to use it.

Apple, Transfer photos and videos from Google Photos to iCloud Photos; Google, Transfer your photos and videos.

Which route fits

The transfer suits a library of ordinary photos when you want no download at all and can wait a few days. Choose a fixed export and File > Import instead when any of these apply: your library has Live Photos or Motion Photos you want to keep whole, you use Advanced Data Protection, you corrected dates or places inside Google Photos (the transfer drops manually edited metadata), you also want a fixed copy on a drive, or you would rather place the photos yourself than receive one large "Import from Google" album.

A third route exists for a small set of files: sign in at icloud.com/photos, select Library or an album, click the upload button and choose the files. It reads the same embedded dates, so the fixed files work there too.

Upload steps from Apple's iCloud user guide.

Check the result

  1. Open a photo from the import and show its Info window. Compare the date and place with what Google Photos showed.
  2. Look at a screenshot from the export. Screenshots often have no date inside them before the fix, so if one sits on the right day, the fallback worked.
  3. In the Photos sidebar, confirm the year and album folders became albums. If they did not, Keep Folder Organization was left unticked; delete the import and run it again with the box ticked.