Guides
How to get a complete copy of your data out of any major service, what you will get back, and where to put it afterwards. All free to read, no account.
Whole jobs
Start to finish: request it, open it, tidy it up, put it where it is going. Begin here if you know where you want to end up.
When something has gone wrong
You already have the export and it will not open, or it opened and the dates are nonsense. The cause, and the fix, including the fix that does not involve us.
Why do my Google Photos have the wrong date?
You downloaded years of photographs from Google Takeout, and every one of them says it was taken on the day you downloaded it. Ten years of picture...
Why are my photos on a map in the sea off Africa?
You imported a Google Takeout into a photo library and a large pile of your pictures has landed at one point in the Atlantic, a few hundred miles s...
Why is my Google location history empty?
You asked Takeout for Location History, expecting years of it, and got an archive with essentially nothing in it - often just a short notice saying...
Why does my Samsung export ask for a password?
Samsung sent your data as a set of zip files, and nothing will open them. Samsung's own My Files app refuses with a message about the file being pa...
Why is my Apple data export missing my photos and health data?
You asked Apple for everything and got a set of archives covering your account, purchases, AppleCare, contacts, calendars, bookmarks and notes. No ...
My export arrived as a dozen separate zip files
You asked for your data and got a pile of numbered archives instead of one file. Apple labels them Part 1 of 3 and similar; Google just numbers the...
Takeout gave me a .tgz file and nothing will open it
You chose .tgz on the Takeout screen, or it was already selected, and now Windows does nothing at all when you double-click the file. It is not bro...
Getting your data out
One service at a time, with what to expect and the parts people get wrong.
Where to keep it
Once your data is cleaned up, put it somewhere you control. These guides cover network drives, external disks, self-hosted servers, and getting a tidied library back into a cloud service.
Questions people ask first
Does it cost anything?
No. Everything is free: the guides, and every part of the app. Opening an export, merging several, finding duplicates, repairing dates and writing the library back out all run on your own machine, so there is nothing to charge for. There is no paid tier, no account and nothing to buy.
Do I need an account?
No. There is no sign-up, no email address and no password, because there is no server holding anything to sign in to.
Are my files uploaded anywhere?
No. Your archives are read inside your browser, on your own machine. The page is served with a Content-Security-Policy whose connect-src is 'self' and nothing else, so the browser itself refuses to send your files anywhere regardless of what the code asks for. Turn off your wifi before you drop the files in and everything still works.
How long do the exports take to arrive?
It varies enormously. Meta is often minutes to hours, Google hours to days, Apple up to seven days, and Snapchat up to thirty. The waits run in parallel, so if you want several, request them all on the same day.
Which services can I open an export from?
eighteen of them have a reader written for them, Apple, Google, Samsung, Snapchat, Facebook and Instagram among them, and an export from anything else opens too - listed and read as far as its shape allows. Several exports can be opened together and become one library.
What do I get back at the end?
Ordinary folders of ordinary files, with the real dates and locations written into the photographs themselves, duplicates across services removed, and your messages, location history and account records readable. Nothing needs this site afterwards.