I recently needed to restore my Google Takeout export back to Google services. What sounds simple — “just upload it back” — turned into a full-day adventure involving metadata preservation, EXIF manipulation, and OAuth API configuration. Here’s everything I learned.

The Problem

Google Takeout gives you a zip dump of your data. But uploading it back isn’t straightforward:

• Google Drive files lose their modification dates if you just copy them
• Google Photos exports come with .json sidecar files containing dates and GPS, but the photos themselves often lack EXIF data
• Album structure is stored as folder names, not in a format Google Photos can import
• Videos almost never have EXIF dates — Google Photos shows them as “uploaded today”

What I Had

• 1 zip (~5.5GB) containing Google Drive files
• 2 zips (~10GB each) containing Google Photos — about 7,000 photos spanning 2017–2023

Part 1: Restoring Google Drive

The Trap

If you upload the Takeout/Drive/ folder directly, you get a nested “Drive” folder inside Google Drive. Upload the contents, not the folder.

The Solution

I had Google Drive Desktop already installed, so I found my sync folder:

# Find your Google Drive folder
ls ~/Library/CloudStorage/
# Mine was at:
# ~/Library/CloudStorage/GoogleDrive-sethuvamsikrishna@gmail.com/My Drive/

Then used rsync -a to preserve timestamps:

rsync -a "/path/to/Takeout/Drive/" \
  "~/Library/CloudStorage/GoogleDrive-<email>/My Drive/"

Why rsync -a instead of cp? Plain cp resets modification dates to “now”. The -a flag preserves timestamps, permissions, and recursively copies. The Drive desktop app then syncs with correct dates.

What’s Lost Permanently

Sharing permissions, comments, starred status, and version history. Google Takeout doesn’t export these.

Part 2: Restoring Google Photos

This is where it gets complex.

Tools Required

# Organizes Takeout mess into clean chronological folders
# Download from: https://github.com/TheLastGimbus/GooglePhotosTakeoutHelper/releases
curl -sL "https://github.com/TheLastGimbus/GooglePhotosTakeoutHelper/releases/latest/download/gpth-macos" -o gpth-macos
chmod +x gpth-macos
xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine gpth-macos  # macOS only

# Writes dates into photo/video EXIF metadata
brew install exiftool

# Uploads to Google Photos via API with album support
brew install gphotos-uploader-cli

Step 1: Extract One Zip at a Time

I only had 25GB free disk space, so I couldn’t extract both 10GB zips simultaneously.

unzip -q "takeout-001.zip" -d "photos_extracted"

Step 2: Organize with gpth

GooglePhotosTakeoutHelper is purpose-built for this. It reads the .json sidecar files, determines correct dates, handles duplicate filenames, and organizes everything.

./gpth-macos --no-interactive \
  --input "photos_extracted/Takeout/Google Photos" \
  --output "photos_output" \
  --albums shortcut \
  --copy \
  --divide-to-dates

This produces:

• ALL_PHOTOS/2021/04/photo.jpg — chronological organization
• Batukamma/2020/10/photo.jpg — album folders with symlinks to ALL_PHOTOS

Key flags:

• --albums shortcut — creates album folders with symlinks (saves space)
• --copy — doesn’t destroy your input folder
• --divide-to-dates — organizes by year/month

Step 3: The Critical Fix — EXIF Dates

This is the step most guides miss.

gpth sets correct file modification dates but NOT EXIF metadata. Google Photos reads EXIF dates, not file dates. Without this step, hundreds of photos (especially videos) show up as “uploaded today.”

exiftool -overwrite_original -r \
  -if 'not defined $DateTimeOriginal' \
  -P "-AllDates<FileModifyDate" \
  "photos_output/ALL_PHOTOS/"

This writes the file’s modification date (which gpth set correctly from JSON metadata) into the EXIF DateTimeOriginal field — but only for files that don’t already have one.

In my case, 1,400+ files were missing EXIF dates (mostly videos, screenshots, and downloaded images).

Step 4: Set Up gphotos-uploader-cli

This requires a Google Cloud project with Photos Library API enabled.

One-time setup:

1. Go to console.cloud.google.com
2. Create a project
3. Enable Photos Library API (APIs & Services → Library)
4. Set up OAuth consent screen (External, add yourself as test user)
5. Create credentials: OAuth client ID → Desktop app
6. Note the Client ID and Client Secret

Configuration (~/.gphotos-uploader-cli/config.hjson):

{
  APIAppCredentials: {
    ClientID: "YOUR_CLIENT_ID"
    ClientSecret: "YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET"
  }
  Account: "your@gmail.com"
  SecretsBackendType: "file"
  Jobs: [
    {
      // All photos to timeline (no album)
      SourceFolder: "/path/to/photos_output/ALL_PHOTOS"
      DeleteAfterUpload: false
      IncludePatterns: ["**/*.jpg", "**/*.jpeg", "**/*.png", "**/*.gif",
                        "**/*.mp4", "**/*.mkv", "**/*.mov", "**/*.heic"]
      ExcludePatterns: []
    }
    {
      // Named album
      SourceFolder: "/path/to/photos_output/Batukamma"
      Album: "name:Batukamma"
      DeleteAfterUpload: false
      IncludePatterns: ["**/*.jpg", "**/*.jpeg", "**/*.png", "**/*.gif",
                        "**/*.mp4", "**/*.mkv", "**/*.mov", "**/*.heic"]
      ExcludePatterns: []
    }
    // ... repeat for each album folder
  ]
}

Config explained:

• First job uploads all photos to the timeline without any album
• Additional jobs upload album-folder photos into named albums
• Google Photos deduplicates — same photo won’t appear twice, it just gets added to the album

Step 5: Authenticate and Upload

gphotos-uploader-cli auth   # Opens browser for Google OAuth
gphotos-uploader-cli push   # Starts upload

The first time it asks for a passphrase to encrypt the token store locally.

Step 6: Repeat for Next Zip

# Clean up
rm -rf photos_extracted photos_output

# Reset upload tracker
rm -rf ~/.gphotos-uploader-cli/uploaded_files
rm -rf ~/.gphotos-uploader-cli/ongoing_uploads

# Extract next zip and repeat from Step 2

Gotchas I Hit Along the Way

1. cp destroys timestamps

Always use rsync -a for Drive files. Learned this after my first copy lost all dates.

2. gpth ≠ EXIF fix

gpth sets file modification dates. Google Photos reads EXIF dates. You MUST run exiftool after gpth. This one caused hours of confusion.

3. Album naming with gphotos-uploader-cli

• template:%_directory% uses the immediate parent folder name. If your structure is ALL_PHOTOS/2021/12/photo.jpg, the album becomes “12” (the month). Not useful.
• Use name:AlbumName for explicit album names.
• The auto:folderName option exists in newer versions but wasn’t available in v5.1.0.

4. GIF files ignore EXIF

Google Photos doesn’t read EXIF dates from .gif files. They always show the upload date. Manual date edit in the Google Photos UI is the only fix.

5. OAuth consent screen requires test users

If your Cloud project is in “Testing” mode, you must add your own email as a test user before auth works.

6. Videos almost never have EXIF dates

Out of 4,800 files, 1,400+ were missing dates — almost all videos. The exiftool step is non-negotiable.

7. Google Photos API 409 errors

Occasional 409: aborted errors are normal. Just re-run gphotos-uploader-cli push — it skips already-uploaded files and retries failures.

Final Results

The Ideal Pipeline (TL;DR)

# 1. Drive — rsync to Google Drive Desktop folder
rsync -a "Takeout/Drive/" "~/Library/CloudStorage/GoogleDrive-<email>/My Drive/"

# 2. Photos — organize with gpth
./gpth-macos --no-interactive --input "Takeout/Google Photos" \
  --output "photos_output" --albums shortcut --copy --divide-to-dates

# 3. Photos — fix EXIF (THE CRITICAL STEP)
exiftool -overwrite_original -r -if 'not defined $DateTimeOriginal' \
  -P "-AllDates<FileModifyDate" "photos_output/ALL_PHOTOS/"

# 4. Photos — upload with albums
gphotos-uploader-cli push

Four commands. That’s all you need — once you know them.

Tools Used

• GooglePhotosTakeoutHelper (gpth) — organizes Takeout photos
• exiftool — manipulates photo/video metadata
• gphotos-uploader-cli — uploads to Google Photos via API
• Google Drive Desktop App — syncs Drive files