FixMyTakeout

Import a Google Takeout export into Lightroom Classic with capture times intact

Lightroom Classic keeps a photo's capture time in the EXIF Date Time Original tag, which is exactly what a fixed export writes. Its import dialog can leave the files where they are, and its duplicate check recognizes the album copies Takeout repeats.

As at 29 September 2026, for Adobe's Lightroom Classic help pages.

Capture timeEXIF Date Time Original
No capture date in the fileNot documented by Adobe
LocationEmbedded GPS, shown in the Map module

Open the Import dialog

  1. Fix the export with FixMyTakeout and unzip every fixmytakeout-part- zip into the folder where you keep photos, for example Pictures/takeout-fixed.
  2. In the Library module click Import, or choose File > Import Photos And Video.
  3. On the left, under Source, select the takeout-fixed folder. Subfolders are listed beneath it.
  4. Across the top center, choose how the files come in: Add, Copy, Move or Copy as DNG (next section).
  5. On the right, set the destination and the Organize option if you are copying or moving, apply a metadata preset or keywords if you use them, and tick Don't Import Suspected Duplicates.
  6. Click Import.

Adobe, Import photos and video into a catalog.

Add, Copy, Move or Copy as DNG

ModeWhat happens to the filesWhen it suits a fixed export
AddKeeps the photo files in their current location and adds them to the catalogThe unzipped folder is already where you want it. Fastest, no second copy.
CopyCopies the files, including any sidecars, to the destination you chooseYou want the catalog's copy on another drive and the unzipped folder as a spare.
MoveMoves the files, including any sidecars, to the destinationYou want Lightroom's folder layout and no leftover folder.
Copy as DNGCopies and converts raw files to DNGOnly worth it for the RAW files in the export. FixMyTakeout leaves RAW bytes untouched and sets only the file date, so the conversion sees the original.

With Copy or Move, the Organize pop-up offers the original folders, folders by date, or one single folder. Original folders keep the export's "Photos from 2019" and album structure. By date builds a folder tree from the photos' dates instead, which only makes sense once those dates are right.

Adobe, Photo and video import options.

Don't Import Suspected Duplicates and the album copies

Adobe defines a suspected duplicate as a file with the same original file name, the same Exif capture date and time, and the same file size as one already in the catalog. Takeout puts each photo in its year folder and again in every album folder it belonged to, with the same name and content, and FixMyTakeout writes the same capture date into every copy. All three tests match, so once one copy is in the catalog, an import with the box ticked passes over the others. To keep a single copy from the start, use FixMyTakeout's option to leave out album-folder copies.

If you want the choice made before import instead, tick FixMyTakeout's option to leave out album-folder copies; it drops an album copy only when a file with the same name and size also sits in a year folder. Either way, one photo ends up in the catalog once.

Which date Lightroom Classic uses

Adobe's metadata page states that capture time is stored in the EXIF Date Time Original field. FixMyTakeout writes DateTimeOriginal together with OffsetTimeOriginal into every JPEG, HEIC, PNG, WebP and TIFF, so the Library filters and the Capture Time sort work straight away.

What Lightroom Classic does automatically when a file carries no capture date is not documented by Adobe, and neither is how it dates a video. The documented tool for the gap is manual: select the photos, choose Metadata > Edit Capture Time, and pick Change to File Creation Date for Each Image. Unzipping a fixed export sets each file's modified date to the capture time, and on a Mac, double-clicking the zip sets the created date to match (checked with Archive Utility on macOS 15). On Windows, check one file's created date in Explorer first. Where the created date is right, that command gives an undated screenshot the day it was taken. Run it only on files whose date could go on the file alone: in fixmytakeout-report.csv those are the rows where date_written says not writable in this format (AVI, MKV, BMP and similar) or date_source starts with file name, day only. Rows marked none found had no date anywhere, so their file date is only the export's.

Adobe, Metadata basics and actions.

Location and captions

The Map module uses the GPS coordinates embedded in a photo's metadata, and the Metadata panel shows them under the Location preset. A fixed export carries latitude and longitude from Google's geoData in every photo that lacked a position, so photos you placed in Google Photos appear on the map without any tagging.

Lightroom Classic has a Caption field and Adobe says it supports IPTC descriptions, but its help pages do not state which embedded tag fills the field on import. The IPTC standard labels the dc:description field, and the older IIM 2:120 field, "Caption/Description". FixMyTakeout writes your Google Photos caption to XMP dc:description and to EXIF ImageDescription; whether Lightroom shows it in Caption is something to confirm on one photo rather than assume.

Adobe, Map module; IPTC, Photo Metadata Standard.

Check the result

  1. In the Library module, set the sort order to Capture Time and scroll through a year. The export should read in the order the photos were taken.
  2. Open the Metadata panel on one photo you captioned in Google Photos. Check the Capture Time, then switch the preset to Location and confirm the coordinates.
  3. Open the Map module. Photos with a place should sit on the map; a photo with no location stays off it, because a Google position of exactly 0, 0 is never written.
  4. For the report rows marked not writable in this format, apply Edit Capture Time as above and check that one of those files moved to the correct day.