How to backup Google Photos to Google Drive automatically after July 2019 with Apps Script

By Robert Ellison. Updated on Saturday, September 3, 2022.

Warning - I no longer recommend using this script to backup Google Photos. The Google Photos API has too many bugs that Google doensn't seem interested in fixing. My personal approach at this point is to use Google Takeout to get a periodic archive of my most recent year of photos and videos. I have a tool that does some deduplication and puts everything in year/month folders. See Photo Sorter for more details.

Google has decided that backing up your photos via Google Drive is 'confusing' and so Drive based backup is going away this month. I love Google Photos but I don't trust it - I pull everything into Drive and then I stick a monthly backup from there onto an external drive in a fire safe. There is a way to get Drive backup working again using Google Apps Script and the Google Photos API. There are a few steps to follow but it's pretty straightforward - you should only need to change two lines in the script to get this working for your account.

First ~~two~~ four caveats to be aware of. Apps Script has a time limit and so it's possible that it could fail if moving a large number of photos. You should get an email if the script ever fails so watch out for that. Secondly and more seriously you could end up with two copies of your photos. If you use Backup and Sync to add photos from Google Drive then these photos will be downloaded from Google Photos by the script and added to Drive again. You need to either upload directly to Google Photos (i.e. from the mobile app or web site) or handle the duplicates in some way. If you run Windows then I have released a command line tool that sorts photos into year+month taken folders and handles de-duplication.

One more limitation. After a comment by 'Logan' below I realized that Apps Script has a 50MB limitation for adding files to Google Drive. The latest version of the script will detect this and send you an email listing any files that could not be copied automatically.

And a fourth limitation after investigating a comment by 'Tim' it turns out there is a bug in the Google Photos API that means it will not download original quality video files. You get some lower resolution version instead. Together with the file size limit this is a bit of a deal breaker for most videos. Photos will be fine, but videos will need a different fix.

On to the script. In Google Drive create a new spreadsheet. This is just a host for the script and makes it easy to authorize it to access Google Photos. Select 'Script editor' from the Tools menu to create a new Apps Script project.

In the script editor select 'Libraries...' from the Resources menu. Enter 1B7FSrk5Zi6L1rSxxTDgDEUsPzlukDsi4KGuTMorsTQHhGBzBkMun4iDF next to 'Add a library' and click add. This will find the Google OAuth2 library Pick the most recent version and click Save.

Select 'Project properties' from the File menu and copy the Script ID (a long sequence of letters and numbers). You'll need this when configuring the Google Photos API.

In a new window open the Google API Console, part of the Google Cloud Platform. Create a new project, click Enable APIs and Services and find and enable the Google Photos API. Then go to the Keys section and create an OAuth Client ID. You'll need to add a consent screen, the only field you need to fill out is the product name. Choose Web Application as the application type. When prompted for the authorized redirect URL enter https://script.google.com/macros/d/{SCRIPTID}/usercallback and replace {SCRIPTID} with the Script ID you copied above. Copy the Client ID and Client Secret which will be used in the next step.

Go back to the Apps Script project and paste the code below into the Code.gs window:

// script settings var ClientID = ''; var ClientSecret = ''; var BackupFolder = 'Google Photos'; var MaxLength = 50000000; var AlertEmail = '' function onOpen() { var ui = SpreadsheetApp.getUi(); ui.createMenu('Google Photos Backup') .addItem('Authorize if needed (does nothing if already authorized)', 'showSidebar') .addItem('Backup Now', 'runBackup') .addItem('Reset Settings', 'clearProps') .addToUi(); } function runBackup() { var photos = getPhotosService(); var nextPageToken = null; var downloadList = []; // Limit of around 10,000 photos for (var page = 1; page <= 1000; page++) { Logger.log('Requesting page ' + page); var date = new Date(); date.setDate(date.getDate() - 1); var request = { "pageSize":"100", "filters": { "dateFilter": { "ranges": [ { "startDate": { "year": date.getFullYear(), "month": date.getMonth() + 1, "day": date.getDate() }, "endDate": { "year": date.getFullYear(), "month": date.getMonth() + 1, "day": date.getDate() } } ] } } }; if (nextPageToken != null) { request["pageToken"] = nextPageToken; } var response = UrlFetchApp.fetch('https://photoslibrary.googleapis.com/v1/mediaItems:search', { headers: { Authorization: 'Bearer ' + photos.getAccessToken() }, 'method' : 'post', 'contentType' : 'application/json', 'payload' : JSON.stringify(request, null, 2) }); var json = JSON.parse(response.getContentText()); if ('mediaItems' in json) { var photoCount = json.mediaItems.length; for (var i = 0; i < photoCount; i++) { var filename = json.mediaItems[i].filename; var baseUrl = json.mediaItems[i].baseUrl; if ('photo' in json.mediaItems[i].mediaMetadata) { // if the photo property exists it's a photo and use =d to download, otherwise a video and we need to use =dv baseUrl += '=d'; } else { baseUrl += '=dv'; } downloadList.push({ "filename" : filename, "baseUrl" : baseUrl }); } } if ('nextPageToken' in json) { nextPageToken = json.nextPageToken; } else { break; } } var folder; var folders = DriveApp.getFoldersByName(BackupFolder); while (folders.hasNext()) { folder = folders.next(); break; } var alerts = []; var downloadCount = downloadList.length; for (var i = 0; i < downloadCount; i++) { var filename = downloadList[i].filename; Logger.log('Downloading ' + downloadList[i].filename); while (true) { var files = folder.getFilesByName(filename); if (!files.hasNext()) { break; } // duplicate... keep adding (1) to the start until it isn't any more filename = '(1) ' + filename; } var response = UrlFetchApp.fetch(downloadList[i].baseUrl, { headers: { Authorization: 'Bearer ' + photos.getAccessToken() } }); // check size var responseHeaders = response.getHeaders(); var contentLength = responseHeaders['Content-Length']; if (contentLength >= MaxLength) { // need to alert... alerts.push('Cannot download ' + downloadList[i].filename + ' as it is too large.'); } else { // small enough to download var blob = response.getBlob(); blob.setName(filename); folder.createFile(blob); } } var alertCount = alerts.length; if (alertCount > 0) { MailApp.sendEmail(AlertEmail, 'Google Photos Backup large file failures on ' + new Date(), alerts.join('\r\n')); } } // functions below adapted from Google OAuth example at https://github.com/googlesamples/apps-script-oauth2 function getPhotosService() { // Create a new service with the given name. The name will be used when // persisting the authorized token, so ensure it is unique within the // scope of the property store. return OAuth2.createService('photos') // Set the endpoint URLs, which are the same for all Google services. .setAuthorizationBaseUrl('https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/auth') .setTokenUrl('https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/token') // Set the client ID and secret, from the Google Developers Console. .setClientId(ClientID) .setClientSecret(ClientSecret) // Set the name of the callback function in the script referenced // above that should be invoked to complete the OAuth flow. .setCallbackFunction('authCallback') // Set the property store where authorized tokens should be persisted. .setPropertyStore(PropertiesService.getUserProperties()) // Set the scopes to request (space-separated for Google services). // see https://developers.google.com/fit/rest/v1/authorization for a list of Google Fit scopes .setScope('https://www.googleapis.com/auth/photoslibrary.readonly') // Below are Google-specific OAuth2 parameters. // Sets the login hint, which will prevent the account chooser screen // from being shown to users logged in with multiple accounts. .setParam('login_hint', Session.getActiveUser().getEmail()) // Requests offline access. .setParam('access_type', 'offline') // Forces the approval prompt every time. This is useful for testing, // but not desirable in a production application. //.setParam('approval_prompt', 'force'); } function showSidebar() { var photos = getPhotosService(); if (!photos.hasAccess()) { var authorizationUrl = photos.getAuthorizationUrl(); var template = HtmlService.createTemplate( '<a href="<?= authorizationUrl ?>" target="_blank">Authorize</a>. ' + 'Close this after you have finished.'); template.authorizationUrl = authorizationUrl; var page = template.evaluate(); SpreadsheetApp.getUi().showSidebar(page); } else { // ... } } function authCallback(request) { var photos = getPhotosService(); var isAuthorized = photos.handleCallback(request); if (isAuthorized) { return HtmlService.createHtmlOutput('Success! You can close this tab.'); } else { return HtmlService.createHtmlOutput('Denied. You can close this tab'); } } function clearProps() { PropertiesService.getUserProperties().deleteAllProperties(); }

Enter the Client ID and Client Secret inside the empty quotes at the top of the file. You also need to add an email address to receive alerts for large files. There is a BackupFolder option at the top as well - the default is 'Google Photos' which will mimic the old behavior. You can change this if you like but make sure that the desired folder exists before running the script. Save the script.

Go back to the spreadsheet you created and reload. After a few seconds you will have a Google Photos Backup menu (to the right of the Help menu). Choose 'Authorize' from this menu. You will be prompted to give the script various permissions which you should grant. After this a sidebar should appear on the spreadsheet (if not choose 'Authorize' from the Google Photos Backup menu again). Click the authorize link from the sidebar to grant access to Google Photos. Once this is done you should be in business - choose Backup Now from the Google Photos Backup menu and any new items from yesterday should be copied to the Google Photos folder in Drive (or the folder you configured above if you changed this).

Finally you should set up a trigger to automate running the script every day. Choose 'Script editor' from the Tools menu to re-open the script, and then in the script window choose 'Current project's triggers' from the Edit menu. This will open yet another window. Click 'Add Trigger' which is cunningly hidden at the bottom right of the window. Under 'Choose which function to run' select 'runBackup'. Then under 'Select event source' select 'Time-driven'. Under 'Select type of time based trigger' select 'Day timer'. Under 'Select time of day' select the time window that works best for you. Click Save. The backup should now run every day.

The way the script is written you'll get a backup of anything added the previous day each time it runs. If there are any duplicate filenames in the backup folder the script will save a new copy of the file with (1) appended in front of the filename. Let me know in the comments if you use this script or have any suggestions to improve it.

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(Published to the Fediverse as: How to backup Google Photos to Google Drive automatically after July 2019 with Apps Script #code #software #photos #appsscript #google #sheets #drive #api Easy to configure apps script to continue backing up your Google Photos to Google Drive after the July 2019 change. You just need to change two lines of the script to get this running with your Google Photos account. )

code, software, photos, apps script, google, sheets, drive, api

Comments

There is one way to deal with the location issue and that is for Google to modify the download API to not strip out the location information.

I'm not aware of it being stripped out when had a direct link between Google Photos and Google Drive.

I shall comment on the bug trackers and hold out no hope.

∞ | by Tim on Monday, January 13 2020

Rory - go to your Google Account, Security and then Manage third party access. Find the script and revoke access. Then from the host spreadsheet run the Reset Settings option from the Google Photos Backup menu. Finally authorize the app again. Hopefully this should clear whatever has gone wrong.

∞ | by Robert Ellison on Thursday, January 9 2020

I got this all up and running well but it seems that my OATH has expired - I set it to 30 days so unsure why I would be getting these errors?

Start Function Error Message Trigger End

1/8/20 5:30 AM runBackup Error: Access not granted or expired. (line 454, file "Service", project "OAuth2") time-based 1/8/20 5:30 AM

∞ | by Rory on Wednesday, January 8 2020

Tim - I've done some more research and I think the problem you had was due to a bug in the API - issue 80149160 - which means that the dv parameter to download a video will not return the original resolution version. This is a pain. You could comment on the issue tracker in the hope that it encourages Google to fix it, I've just done this. It's been open for a while so I wouldn't hold out much hope. It looks like this is specific to videos and shouldn't impact photo downloads.

Location information is stripped out of photos by the download API and I don't see any way to override this behavior.

∞ | by Robert Ellison on Saturday, January 4 2020

Spoke to soon - working like a charm!

Thanks again Robert.

∞ | by Rory on Thursday, January 2 2020

Thank you for this - I got it all up and running script is going and syncing however on first look it doesn't seem to sync anything new than July 23rd - any ideas what could cause this?

∞ | by Rory on Thursday, January 2 2020

It's not the 50MB limit I'm hitting in all cases but the fact that Google only allows high quality videos and photos to be uploaded using the Google Photos API, rather than the uploading from original quality videos and photos. I'd wanted the original quality videos and photos to be uploaded.

It may not bother all people, depending on what they are doing with the photos and videos that are uploaded.

However this limitation, along with the one that strips the location information, as ruined the whole work flow that I'd spent some time putting together - originally when the Google Drive syncing was automatic.

∞ | by Tim on Thursday, January 2 2020

Hi Tim, the limitation I'm aware of is 50MB for adding files to drive. Did you set up an email address so the script can email you if it runs into this limit? Not sure why a 23MB file would fail this way. I've seen a reference to a daily upload limit, it might be possible that this was hit if a lot of files were uploaded on the same day.

∞ | by Robert Ellison on Thursday, January 2 2020

I noticed that one of the videos that was uploaded today, using the script, was only 4MB as opposed to 23MB it should be. I then downloaded the video from Google photos and manually uploaded it as a separate file and it was showing as 23MB in Google Drive.

This suggests the original full-size videos and photos are not being uploaded to Google Drive using the script. Is this a limitation of the API?

Cheers and Happy Christmas and New Year.

∞ | by Tim on Tuesday, December 31 2019

the 'rclone' command line utility (for Linux, Mac, Windows) now supports Google Photos and organizes everything into folders by year, month, or day.

∞ | by Steven W Buehler on Thursday, December 26 2019