Simple Merge Google Photos Takeout .json to .jpg

You could:

a) Ignore the .json sidecar files. Download and archive (just in case) .zip files from Google Takeout. Then expand the .zip and import only images and movies to a new Photos album (so you can easily delete that batch, if needed). Then if some metadata seems to be missing, delete that batch and use the .json sidecars:

b) Use GraphicConverter to copy .json to the images and movies. GraphicConverter is shareware. That means you can test the product free of charge and without any obligations before you purchase it.

c) Or learn basic Terminal skills and use exiftool to copy .json to images with the command below:

exiftool -overwrite_original -d %s -tagsFromFile '%d/%F.json' '-GPSLatitude*<${GeoDataLatitude;$_ = undef if $_ eq "0.0"}' '-GPSLongitude*<${GeoDataLongitude;$_ = undef if $_ eq "0.0"}' '-Caption-Abstract<Description' '-Description<Description' '-Rating<${Favorited;$_=5 if $_=~/true/i}' '-AllDates<PhotoTakenTimeTimestamp' '-FileCreateDate<PhotoTakenTimeTimestamp' '-FileModifyDate<PhotoTakenTimeTimestamp' -ext jpg -ext heic -ext tif -ext png -ext webp -ext gif .

And use exiftool to copy .json to movies with the command below:

exiftool -overwrite_original -d %s -api QuickTimeUTC=1 -api LargeFileSupport=1 -tagsFromFile '%d/%F.json' '-Keys:GPSCoordinates<${GeoDataLatitude;$_ = undef if $_ eq "0.0"}, ${GeoDataLongitude;$_ = undef if $_ eq "0.0"}' '-Keys:Description<Description' '-Keys:UserRating<${Favorited;$_=5 if $_=~/true/i}' '-AllDates<PhotoTakenTimeTimestamp' '-Track*Date<PhotoTakenTimeTimestamp' '-Media*Date<PhotoTakenTimeTimestamp' '-Keys:CreationDate<PhotoTakenTimeTimestamp' '-FileCreateDate<PhotoTakenTimeTimestamp' '-FileModifyDate<PhotoTakenTimeTimestamp' -ext mp4 -ext m4v -ext mov .

That should work. I don't here go in detail for two little gotchas that might need some extra tweaks (Google might scramble some file suffixes so the image or movie might not match the corresponding .json and Google's use of UTC times might need adjusting to correct time zone).

If you have not edited metadata (date, location etc) inside Google Photos, you can ignore .json sidecars because that old info is already in the image metadata.

Otherwise you can use GraphicConverter ($40) to join .json metadata to the images and movies.

A free alternative is to do it with exiftool via the Terminal but then you can not escape geek code lingo. Or bribe a geek to do it for you.

Rijifi wrote:

exiftool adventure (should I need to use it!), I'll come back for more advice! 😉

A short Terminal and exiftool manual:

Using exiftool via the command line is not so difficult as it sounds. Just download the MacOS Package .pkg from exiftool main page and install it. Depending on the macOS version there might be an alert that the .pkg was not opened but do not worry: exiftool is from a trusted developer who has just not a bought a certificate from Apple. So dismiss the alert with "Done", and open System Settings > Privacy & Security > Security and click Open Anyway and proceed to install.

Then, for example, put copies (just in case when testing this) of the images or movies you want to process on the Desktop to a folder named 'test' (don't put anything else there).

Then open Applications > Utilities > Terminal.app, type 'cd ' (without quotes, notice the space at the end) and drag that 'test' folder to the Terminal window and press Return to change to that folder (or type 'cd ~/Desktop/test' followed by Return. The tilde '~' means your home folder).

Then copy & paste the desired command to the Terminal, press Return, and wait for all files in that folder to be processed. For example check almost all metadata for all files in that folder:

exiftool -a -G1 -s .

The dot '.' at the end of a command means 'this folder'. Or alternatively, omit that dot '.' at the end, and instead type the exact name of the file you want to process. Or type just the start of the filename, and then press Tab to use autocomplete and maybe insert '*' to the end, and hit Return to process all files that start with the same letters. Or add '-ext jpg' switch to the command to process only files that have .jpg suffix. That was a rather clumsy instruction but I guess you get the idea to get you going.

https://exiftool.org/