Using SyncBackPro > Expert Mode

You are strongly advised to use a linked cloud account.

SyncBackPro has the ability to backup photos and videos stored on Google Photos. It can only copy files from Google Photos. It cannot upload, delete or change files stored on Google Photos. It is strictly read-only.

How Files are Stored

In Google Photos you can put photos and videos (which we'll now refer to as files) in Albums. A file can be in multiple albums or no albums at all. Files on Google Photos also have their original filename stored (which is likely the one used by the camera, for example). This filename is not guaranteed to be unique and is not used by Google Photos (it's purely for you reference). Files on Google Photos also have a unique ID (which is a very long meaningless string of letters and numbers).

SyncBackPro will store the files, downloaded from Google Photos, based on the date the file was created by the device that took it. So at the highest level is the year, followed by the month. The numeric value of the month is used instead of the name (for consistency across all languages). For example:

X:\Google Photos Backup\2019\1\

X:\Google Photos Backup\2019\2\

X:\Google Photos Backup\2018\12\

X:\Google Photos Backup\2016\6\

The local filename used is the filename on Google Photos (e.g. the filename given by the camera) along with a hash of the unique file ID. This is to ensure the filename is unique, e.g. VIDEO0007.54A7ECCE.mp4

Due to the way Google Photos works, there are some limitations:

•Google will not allow location meta-data to be downloaded so it will not be included in any files downloaded by SyncBackPro from Google Photos.

•SyncBackPro uses Google Photos essentially in read-only mode. It cannot make any changes to anything on Google Photos. To restore your photos to Google Photos, use their web interface or other Google Photos tools.

•Google Photos does not provide file size details, so SyncBackPro does not know how large the files are when we receive the list from Google Photos.

•Some files on Google Photos may not have a date & time or a valid date & time. You cannot change the date & time of a file on Google Photos.

•SyncBackPro does not use the date & time, or the size, for comparisons.

•Files on Google Photos don't have attributes like on normal file systems.

•When choosing the file & folders to download, you actually choose based on the local filesystem and not on what is on Google Photos. For example, if you only want to download files from 2019 then, if not already created, create a local folder called 2019, then choose the folders (years) you want to download. Make sure other years are deselected or set it to not include new folders. Alternatively, use a filter.

•A number of options are not available when using Google Photos, e.g. Fast Backup, Intelligent Sync, Compression, etc.

Settings

•Copy the photos from files from Google Photos: Enable this option to copy files (photos and videos) from Google Photos.

oUse my account: By clicking this button you are setting the profile to use your linked cloud account.

oConnect to/Disconnect from Google Photos: Click this button to allow SyncBackPro to use your Google Photos account (or to stop it using the account). You'll need to login to your Google Photos account via a web browser then enter an authorization code into SyncBackPro. It is strongly recommended that you instead use a linked cloud account.

oUsername: This is read-only and simply shows the username (email address) of the Google Photos account being used, if any.

•I use a proxy server: If you must use a proxy server to connect to Google Photos then you must enable this option.

oHostname: This is the hostname of the proxy server, e.g. proxyserver.com

oUsername: This is the username to use to connect to the proxy server. It may be optional for your proxy server.

oPassword: This is the password to use to connect to the proxy server. It may be optional for your proxy server.

oPort: The port number of the proxy server. This value varies depending upon the type of proxy server software used. Although "1" is the default, it will almost certainly not be this number.