[hruzgar]

no, takeout gives you the full quality. All other ways of accessing your photos from the api (there is some github projects) don't give you the full quality images though.

But with takeout the problem is that all dates and metadata gets messed up. I had to learn this the hard way. There is some tools that somehow correct the dates. But it's not perfect and I wouldn't really want my photos to be locked up like that. What if google decides to discontinue Google Takeout? Or just give you lower quality pictures after some point? You really are not safe.

Since that experience I moved to onedrive temporarily because it's a bit safer solution for now until all of these new services get stable (immich, ente, etc). Onedrive let's you access you photos like normal Onedrive files so that's really good. I know microsoft will have my data now and sync is also not perfect. So it's definitely not perfect. But I had to move to something else before the better solutions emerge.

[marwis]

Takeout fails if you have too many files. I had to takeout few albums at a time which is a PITA.

OneDrive ceased to be a good backup alternative when they stripped GPS from all my photos 1-2 years ago. Unlike Google, there's no way to recover original files. They simply destroyed them.

[ValentineC]

> OneDrive ceased to be a good backup alternative when they stripped GPS from all my photos 1-2 years ago.

This is scary. Isn't OneDrive supposed to keep files bit-identical? Or were you using their iOS/Android apps to back up photos, and some bug caused the photos to be backed up without their metadata?

[marwis]

Yes, it is. Although seems only limited to Camera Roll folder. Perhaps this is why Samsung Camera built-in OneDrive integration uses different folder.

Their mobile app is now stripping GPS on upload while files uploaded from desktop are unaffected.

However the files I already had uploaded going back to 2017 were stripped. No idea if this was done server side or by the mobile client but the end effect is the same.

Unlike Google, Microsoft doesn't bother documenting this policy.

[alisonatwork]

I haven't seen this behavior. All of my photos synced from Android to OneDrive have GPS data, as expected. I just checked a few from 2017 (Windows Phone) and 2018 (Android) and still there too. Did you see the same behavior on all your devices?

[marwis]

Looks like it's preserving them now (for newly backed up). I guess I was unlucky.

[anneessens]

I have the exact same metadata issue after exporting from Google Photos. Would you mind to share which tools you used to fix it?

[addandsubtract]

Isn't Takeout their GDPR compliance tool? I don't see them ever removing it. Only exporting lower quality pictures at some point down the road is a valid concern, though.

[vishnumohandas]

Takeout is malicious compliance.

Google Photos already has a public API. But you cannot consume it if you are building a competing service[1]. Also, the APIs will not serve you files in their original quality.

If they wanted to honor the intent behind GDPR's portability mandate, it would have been trivial for them to enable seamless migrations.

Now what's ironic is how Google is a "partner" in the Data Transfer Initiative[2].

[1]: https://developers.google.com/photos/library/guides/acceptab...

[2]: https://dtinit.org