How to Move Your Photo Library Between Services

Moving a photo library comes down to four steps: export your originals from the old service, keep the metadata (dates, albums, captions, locations) with them, import into the new service, and check that everything arrived. Along the way, keep one copy of the files that you control, on your own drive. That copy matters more than which service you end up on.

Most large photo services offer an export, and a few offer direct transfers to each other. Neither is hard. The problems come from the details, such as dates that reset, albums that flatten into one folder, or a few hundred photos that quietly go missing.

Why people move

The reasons are usually practical. A free plan changes: Flickr limited free accounts to 1,000 photos and videos in early 2019, and Google Photos stopped offering free unlimited storage on June 1, 2021, after which new uploads counted against the account's storage quota. Sometimes it's a new phone from a different maker, a price rise, or a service that seems to be winding down. And sometimes a service simply closes, as many early photo-sharing sites did.

Whatever the reason, it's worth starting before you're forced to. A move with no deadline lets you check things properly.

Step 1: Export the originals

Look for the official export in each service's settings. Wording varies, but common names are "download your data," "export" or "request a copy." Some examples:

Google Photos exports through Google Takeout, which packages your photos into one or more archive files.
Flickr offers a download of your account data, including your photos, from its account settings.
Apple's iCloud Photos can be downloaded from the Photos app on a Mac or from the iCloud website, and Apple's privacy site can also request a copy of your data.
X gives you an archive that includes the media you posted. Our guide to downloading your X archive explains how.

Always choose original files if there's a choice. A "large" or "high quality" download may already be resized.

Large libraries arrive in several archive files. Download all of them before you start unzipping, and keep the originals until the move is finished.

Direct transfers

Some services can send photos directly to another, without you downloading anything. Apple and Meta, for example, both offer tools to copy photos to Google Photos and some other services. These are convenient for big libraries and slow connections. The trade-off is less control: albums, captions and edits may not all come across, and you don't end up with a copy on your own drive. If you use a direct transfer, consider making a local export too.

Step 2: Keep the metadata

A photo library is more than image files. It's also when each photo was taken, where, which album it was in, what you called it, and sometimes who's in it.

Some of this lives inside the photo file itself, in its EXIF data: the date and time the camera recorded, the camera model and often the location. That survives any normal copy. Other information lives only in the service's database, and the export has to write it out somewhere. Services do this differently:

Some put dates and captions into separate files next to each photo. Google Takeout, for example, includes a small JSON file with metadata for each item.
Some organize photos into folders named after albums. A photo that was in two albums may appear twice, or only once.
Some write nothing at all beyond the image files.

If your new service doesn't read the separate metadata files, your photos may all show up dated the day you exported them. Free tools exist that read these files and write the dates back into the photos before you import. Test with a small batch first.

Edits are another trap. Many services store edits as instructions on top of the original. Depending on the export, you may get the original, the edited version or both.

Step 3: Import

Upload into the new service using its desktop uploader or app where possible. Browser uploads work, but big libraries are much easier with a tool that can resume after an interruption.

Import in chunks: a year at a time, or one album at a time. If something goes wrong, you'll know where to look.

Step 4: Check that everything arrived

This is the step people skip, and it's where photos go missing.

Compare counts. Note how many photos and videos the old service says you have, and compare with the new one. Small differences can be duplicates; large ones need a closer look.
Spot-check old photos. Look at a few photos from different years. Are the dates right? Are they in the right albums?
Check videos separately. They're more likely to fail on upload because of size or format.
Look for HEIC and RAW files. Not every service handles every format the same way.

Only when you're satisfied should you delete anything from the old service. Many people keep the old account for a few months anyway, just in case.

Keep a copy you control

Services change their plans, prices and policies, and some close. The safest library is one where at least one complete copy sits on storage you own, such as an external drive, a home server or a computer that's backed up.

A common rule of thumb is three copies, on two different kinds of storage, with one kept somewhere else. For photos, that might be the files on your computer, a copy on an external drive, and a cloud service. It sounds like a lot of effort until the day one of them fails.

Once your library is in order, sharing photos on X is easier. If you're posting old photos, the TwitPickr tool can crop them to shapes X shows uncropped and keep the file size under the limit, all on your own device.

TwitPickr is not affiliated with Flickr, Google, Apple, Meta or X Corp. Export options and plan limits change; check each service's help pages before a big move.

Quick answers

Will my photos lose quality when I move them?

Not if you export the original files. Most services let you download originals, and copying a file doesn't change it. Quality is lost when a service stores a compressed version, or when you download a resized copy instead of the original.

Why are my photo dates wrong after importing?

Some exports store dates and captions in separate metadata files instead of inside the photos. If the new service doesn't read those files, it falls back to the file date, which is usually the day you downloaded it. Tools that merge the metadata back into the photos fix this.