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How can I back up my photos and videos on Google Photos to my QNAP NAS?

Last modified date: 2025-05-06

Applicable Products

  • QTS 5.0.0 and later
  • QuTS hero h5.0.0 and later  

Introduction

Google Photos is a widely used cloud storage service for managing personal photo and video files online, accessible to anyone with a Google account. However, cloud storage services such as Google Photos may have associated costs, come with various limitations such as quality reductions, and increase your reliance on online platforms. For these reasons, you can use your QNAP NAS to store your files and back up the files on your Google Photos account. Using your QNAP NAS to store and back up files will ensure that your files are always safe, accessible, and under your full control. This tutorial explains how to back up your media files from Google Photos to your NAS. 

Backup files from Google Photos to your NAS using Google Takeout

To back up files from your Google Photos account to your QNAP NAS, you can use Google's data export service, Google Takeout. Takeout will export your data which can be downloaded to your PC and then uploaded to your NAS.

1. Prepare your media files for export in Google Photos

  2. If not already signed in, sign in with your Google account.
  3. In the top right corner, click to go to the Settings page.
  4. Under Backup quality for photos & videos, select one of the following options:
    1. Original quality: Media files will be exported with original quality. This is the recommended option.
    2. Storage saver: Media files will be exported with an optimized quality. If you select this option, then you need to change your Google account language to English. This is necessary to ensure that the metadata of the media files is compatible with other apps. You can change your Google account language back to the previous value after exporting your media files from Google Photos.

2. Export your media files from Google Photos via Google Takeout

  2. If not signed in already, sign in with your Google account.
    The section Select data to include appears. This is the first step in the Google Takeout export process.
  3. Click Deselect all to deselect all Google services that are selected by default.
  4. Select Google Photos. You may need to scroll down to see the Google Photos field.

  5. Click All photo albums included.
    The Google Photos content options window opens.
  6. Select the albums you want to export.
  7. Click OK.
  8. Click Multiple formats.
    The Googles Photo formats window appears. This window shows file formats of the files that will be exported.
  9. Review the file formats and click OK.
  10. Scroll down and click Next Step.
    The Choose file type, frequency & destination section appears.
  11. Under Destination > Transfer to, select Send download link via email.
  12. Under Frequency, select Export once.
    Tip
    You can select Export every 2 months for 1 year to automatically export data at regular intervals. If you select this option, you can go to Export Progress > Manage your Exports to view and download the exported data at any time.
  13. Under File type & size, select .zip or .tgz.
  14. Under File size, set the maximum size for each exported archive file. Google Takeout will generate multiple archive files if the storage size of your Google Photos media files exceeds File Size.
  15. Click Create Export.
    Google Takeout will start exporting your media files from Google Photos. You can open the Google Takeout webpage at any time, scroll down to Export Progress, and view the export progress.
  16. When the export is finished, Google will send you an export link. Open the email, and click the link to download the exported media files.

3. Upload your media files from your computer to your NAS

  1. After downloading the exported data from the previous steps, open your computer's file browser and locate the downloaded archive file or files.
  2. Extract the archive.
  3. Log on to your NAS.
  4. Open File Station.
  5. Navigate to the destination folder where you want to store your media files.
  6. Drag and drop the extracted files from your file browser into File Station.
    File Station creates a background task to upload your files.
  7. If you configure the selected destination folder as a content source folder for QuMagie, you can view the photos and videos in QuMagie.

Further reading

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