gphotosdl

Google Photos Downloader for rclone

This is a Google Photos downloader for use with rclone.

The Google Photos API delivers images and video which aren't full resolution, and/or have EXIF data missing (see #112096115 and #113672044)

However if you use this proxy then you can download original, unchanged images as uploaded by you.

This runs a headless browser in the background with an HTTP server which rclone which uses the Google Photos website to fetch the original resolution images.

Usage

First install rclone and set it up with google photos.

You will need rclone version v1.69 or later. If v1.69 hasn't been release yet then please use the latest beta.

Next download the latest gphotosdl binary from the releases page.

You will need to run like this first. This will open a browser window which you should use to login to google photos - then close the browser window. You may have to do this again if the integration stops working.

gphotosdl -login

Once you have done this you can run this to run the proxy.

gphotosdl

Then supply the parameter --gphotos-proxy "http://localhost:8282" to make rclone use the proxy. For example

rclone copy -vvP --gphotos-proxy "http://localhost:8282" gphotos:media/by-month/2024/2024-09/ /tmp/high-res-media/

Run the gphotosdl command with the -debug flag for more info and the -show flag to see the browser that it is using. These are essential if you are trying to debug a problem.

gphotosdl -debug -show

Troubleshooting

You can't run more than one proxy at once. If you get the error

browser launch: [launcher] Failed to get the debug url: Opening in existing browser session.

Then there is another gphotosdl running or there is an orphan browser process you will have to kill.

Limitations

• Currently only fetches one image at once. Conceivably could make multiple tabs in the browser to fetch more than one at once.
• More error checking needed - if it goes wrong then it will hang forever most likely
• Currently the browser only has one profile so this can only be used with one google photos user. This is easy to fix.

License

This is free software under the terms of the MIT license (check the LICENSE file included in this package).

Contact and support

The project website is at:

• https://github.com/rclone/gphotosdl

There you can file bug reports, ask for help or contribute patches.