Summary
- Google Photos users can now easily transfer photos and videos to iCloud Photos.
- The process is relatively seamless, but does have some requirements that need to be met.
- The transfer process can take up to several days.
If you’ve been thinking about jumping ship and going from Android to iPhone, chances are, you’ve also been thinking of a clever and painless way to transfer your photos. There are a lot of different options, like direct transfer, but if you’re like me and have been relying on cloud storage to back up all your photos and videos, it could make the move a bit trickier. Now you can always stay with your current provider, but if you wanted to go all in on Apple and move things over, there’s now a solution that will make it easier.
Related
Apple lets you natively transfer your iCloud media to Google Photos
It’s now a lot easier to switch to Google’s ecosystem
The new tool was spotted by the Data Transfer Initiative, which will provide Google Photos users with the ability to easily transfer all their picture and video data to iCloud Photos without missing a beat (via 9to5Mac). As far as when this will be able to happen, the feature is expected to roll out over the next week.
You can now go from Google to Apple and vice versa
Now, if you’re unfamiliar, for some years now, Apple has allowed users to transfer their photos to Google Photos in a seamless fashion with its provided tool. Of course, there are some obvious prerequisites to this process, like having enough storage on Google Photos to support what’s being transferred, and other stipulations as well.
For the most part, there really shouldn’t be too many issues transferring your files from Google to Apple as long as you follow the directions that are laid out on Google’s support page. Now, what’s key is that none of your photos and videos from Google Photos will be deleted when transferred, so you can always go back and check to make sure everything is on the new service.
And as far as supported files go, you’ll be able to transfer “.jpg, .png, .gif, .webp, .avif and most RAW files”, along with “mp4, .mov, .m4v, .mpg, mkv, .mod, .mmv, avi, .divx, .tod, .wmv, .asf, .3gp, .3g2, .m2t, .m2ts, and .mts files” when it comes to videos. Unsupported files will not transfer, so make sure your files match the ones above.
Of course, there are more limitations and fine details, but as long as you follow the requirements above, and your Google account isn’t a restricted one like a child, organization, or you have Advanced Protection turned on, you should be fine. And while this process is relatively painless, it does take some time, with it requiring up to seven days for the entire process to complete. So, with that said, give it a try.
