What Does the Program Do?
Ashampoo Meta Fusion helps you restore metadata to photos exported via Google Takeout. Google provides the images without metadata, which is instead stored in separate JSON files. This program ensures that the metadata is reintegrated into the images, giving you complete information such as capture dates, locations, and more.How to Start a Google Takeout Export
To begin exporting your Google Photos, follow these steps:1. Open Google Takeout:
- Go to Google Takeout (https://takeout.google.com/) and sign in with your Google account.
2. Select Data:
- Click "Deselect all" to export only the desired data.
- Scroll down and enable "Google Photos".
- Click "All photo albums included" and select the albums you want to export.
3. Configure Export Settings:
- Click "Next step".
- Choose your preferred delivery method (e.g., download link via email).
- Select the file format (e.g., ZIP) and the maximum file size.
4. Start the Export:
- Click "Create export".
- The export may take some time depending on the size of your data.
5. Download the Export:
- Once the export is complete, you’ll receive an email with a download link.
- Click the link to download the ZIP files.
Note that the export may take several hours or even days depending on the size of your photo library. Ensure you have enough storage space on your device to save the downloaded files.
After downloading and extracting the ZIP files, you can process the included photos and metadata (in JSON files) with our program to reintegrate the metadata into the images.
User Interface
File Selection:
- Select Takeout Files: Choose the files downloaded from Google Takeout that you want to process. Important: The files downloaded from Google Takeout must not be renamed.
- Select Output Location: Specify the destination folder where the processed images will be saved.
Options and Settings:
- Copy Files Instead of Moving: Ensures that the files remain in the source folder, while copies are created in the destination folder.
- Organize Output Files by Year and Month: Enables an organized folder structure by year and month. If disabled, all photos are saved in one folder.
- Try to Extract Date from Filename: This option is enabled by default and attempts to determine the date from the filename if no metadata is available.
- Skip Additional Files like Edited Versions: Skips unnecessary duplicates of images, such as edited versions.
Album Options:
Choose how to handle albums:- Copy Files: Copies the photos from the albums. Ideal if you want an exact copy of the images on your computer.
- Ignore: Albums are not considered during the export process.
- Create JSON File: Generates a JSON file with details about the albums and exported photos.