Migration guide

How to migrate from Google Photos to Immich

Google Takeout exports your photos, but a meaningful chunk of the metadata (real date, geolocation) lives in a .json next to each photo, not in the file's own EXIF — whatever importer you use needs to know how to read that .json, or dates will come out wrong.

1. 1

   Request the export from Google Takeout

   At takeout.google.com, deselect everything except "Google Photos", and pick a maximum archive size (50GB is reasonable) so Google splits the export into several downloadable .zip files instead of one giant one.

2. 2

   Deploy Immich via Docker Compose

   Immich needs PostgreSQL with the pgvector extension (the `tensorchord/pgvecto-rs` image, already in its docker-compose.yml) and Redis. Before uploading anything, mount the upload volume (`immich_uploads`) on a disk with real space for your whole library, not the system disk.

3. 3

   Upload with immich-go, not the official CLI alone

   Immich's official CLI uploads photo folders, but doesn't parse Takeout's .json files. The community tool `immich-go` does — it reads each .json next to its photo and fixes the real date/geolocation before uploading, and also handles Takeout's "Photos from YYYY" folders as albums. Check the exact flags for your version with `immich-go --help`, since they change between releases.

4. 4

   Spot-check Motion Photos and shared albums

   Google/Pixel Motion Photos sometimes import as a separate photo and video instead of the original animated format — check a handful of examples after uploading. Albums shared with other people in Google Photos don't migrate as shared: you'll need to re-share them manually from Immich.

5. 5

   Re-tag faces and check for duplicates

   Immich runs its own facial recognition from scratch on import — the person names you assigned in Google Photos don't carry over, you'll need to re-tag people. Also check whether Takeout duplicated any files (happens with edited photos Google stores twice) before considering the migration done.

These steps are a general guideline — the exact export menu can vary depending on Google Photos's plan and version.