Only images and videos can be uploaded. If you attempt to upload non
videos or images or formats that Google Photos doesn't understand,
rclone will upload the file, then Google Photos will give an error
when it is put turned into a media item.
Note that all media items uploaded to Google Photos through the API
are stored in full resolution at "original quality" and **will** count
towards your storage quota in your Google Account. The API does
**not** offer a way to upload in "high quality" mode..
`rclone about` is not supported by the Google Photos backend. Backends without
this capability cannot determine free space for an rclone mount or
use policy `mfs` (most free space) as a member of an rclone union
remote.
See [List of backends that do not support rclone about](https://rclone.org/overview/#optional-features)
See [rclone about](https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_about/)
### Downloading Images
When Images are downloaded this strips EXIF location (according to the
docs and my tests). This is a limitation of the Google Photos API and
is covered by [bug #112096115](https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/112096115).
**The current google API does not allow photos to be downloaded at original resolution. This is very important if you are, for example, relying on "Google Photos" as a backup of your photos. You will not be able to use rclone to redownload original images. You could use 'google takeout' to recover the original photos as a last resort**
### Downloading Videos
When videos are downloaded they are downloaded in a really compressed
version of the video compared to downloading it via the Google Photos
web interface. This is covered by [bug #113672044](https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/113672044).
### Duplicates
If a file name is duplicated in a directory then rclone will add the
file ID into its name. So two files called `file.jpg` would then
appear as `file {123456}.jpg` and `file {ABCDEF}.jpg` (the actual IDs
are a lot longer alas!).
If you upload the same image (with the same binary data) twice then
Google Photos will deduplicate it. However it will retain the
filename from the first upload which may confuse rclone. For example
if you uploaded an image to `upload` then uploaded the same image to
`album/my_album` the filename of the image in `album/my_album` will be
what it was uploaded with initially, not what you uploaded it with to
`album`. In practise this shouldn't cause too many problems.
### Modified time
The date shown of media in Google Photos is the creation date as
determined by the EXIF information, or the upload date if that is not
known.
This is not changeable by rclone and is not the modification date of
the media on local disk. This means that rclone cannot use the dates
from Google Photos for syncing purposes.
### Size
The Google Photos API does not return the size of media. This means
that when syncing to Google Photos, rclone can only do a file
existence check.
It is possible to read the size of the media, but this needs an extra
HTTP HEAD request per media item so is **very slow** and uses up a lot of
transactions. This can be enabled with the `--gphotos-read-size`
option or the `read_size = true` config parameter.
If you want to use the backend with `rclone mount` you may need to
enable this flag (depending on your OS and application using the
photos) otherwise you may not be able to read media off the mount.
You'll need to experiment to see if it works for you without the flag.
### Albums
Rclone can only upload files to albums it created. This is a
[limitation of the Google Photos API](https://developers.google.com/photos/library/guides/manage-albums).
Rclone can remove files it uploaded from albums it created only.
### Deleting files
Rclone can remove files from albums it created, but note that the
Google Photos API does not allow media to be deleted permanently so
this media will still remain. See [bug #109759781](https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/109759781).
Rclone cannot delete files anywhere except under `album`.
