How to Copy Your Photos From Facebook to Google Photos
Google’s photography platform is superior to Facebook. While it’s also free to use – with some restrictions – it’s much better for organizing your photos and finding specific pictures by name, time, date, or the people inside them. Plus, disconnecting photos from your social media account allows you to take a break from the last (temporary or permanent) without losing easy access to those memories.
Fortunately, transferring photos from Facebook to Google Photos has never been easier. Instead of waiting for Facebook to create an archive of your Facebook data, including your images, which you can then import into Google Photos, Facebook has integrated upload functionality directly into its website.
To get started, open Facebook and click the drop-down arrow in the upper right corner of the screen. From there, click on Settings & Privacy> Settings (or just use this handy link to skip these steps). From there, click on “Your Facebook Info” on the left sidebar where you will see a new option on this screen:
Click View next to the option “Transfer a copy of your photos or videos” and get ready to enter your Facebook password (if prompted). Then you will see this screen – we apologize in advance for how it looks as it doesn’t play well with Facebook dark mode:
Hit the blue Choose Destination button and choose the only option you can play with at the time of this writing: Google Photos. You will then be able to choose if you want to copy your photos or videos. (You can simply repeat the copying process after the first round is complete, if you want both.)
Click the blue Next button that appears and give Facebook permission through Google to access your photo library.
You will then be taken back to Facebook again. You will now see a large button “Confirm Transfer”. He’s also blue. Click on it. Your screen should now look like this:
The wait begins. I did a simultaneous transfer of videos and photos, and the first one ended much earlier than the second one. How long it will take to copy your photos depends on how many items you have saved on Facebook. My account dates from 2005 (I was one of the first at Northwestern University) so I suspect it might take a whole day. You will receive a notification when your data has been copied, so there is no need to keep your browser window open while you wait:
Expect Facebook to support more copying services for your data throughout the year. And I must emphasize again that Facebook is just copying your photos and videos. They will still live on Facebook, and the best way to massively remove them from the service is to disable your account . Otherwise, be prepared for clicking too often – you will likely get tired long before manually deleting your photos.
Also be aware that this process is not flawless. When I transferred my videos, they all appeared in my Google Photos library with a May 1st creation date – the date they were uploaded – regardless of when the videos were actually filmed.
Likewise, I suspect that any transferred photos will likely look as if they were taken on the same day. I hope this is not the case, as it does not help at all to organize them in any meaningful way. Hopefully we’ll see in a few hours?