migrate from Flickr to Google Photos

[Adam Cios]

I have been looking for a solution to migrate my Flickr collection of just under 50K photos to Google Photos. 

The main problem I have is that I have done quite a bit of tagging and album creating in Flickr and would like to transfer that data at the same time. This includes tags, descriptions and other custom geo tagging. I won't have many comments so that is not a big deal.

Is there a workflow with Photini that would work? I envision using Photini to download all my flickr images and data then just upload it all to Google Photos. It sounds too simple.

Currently my photos are all in Flickr and only scans and digital photos from older devices are stored locally. I would like to use this to setup a local storage sync also.

I use Linux Mint and if I was to use this I would keep a backup of the photos synced to a Synology NAS.

[Jim Easterbrook]

On 05/04/2024 02:14, Adam Cios wrote:
> I have been looking for a solution to migrate my Flickr collection of
> just under 50K photos to Google Photos.
>
> The main problem I have is that I have done quite a bit of tagging and
> album creating in Flickr and would like to transfer that data at the
> same time. This includes tags, descriptions and other custom geo
> tagging. I won't have many comments so that is not a big deal.
>
> Is there a workflow with Photini that would work? I envision using
> Photini to download all my flickr images and data then just upload it
> all to Google Photos. It sounds too simple.

Short answer is no, Photini won't do that. Photini doesn't download
images, but it will sync metadata between local images and those on
Flickr. It relies on the image timestamps to decide which local image
corresponds to one on Flickr, and prompts the user to confirm the match
(or select one image if there's ambiguity). Doing that 50K times might
get a bit tedious.

The synced metadata includes tags, descriptions, and GPS coords, but not
album membership or comments.

The Flickr API allows getting all that data. I would recommend writing
your own software (e.g. a Python script) to download your images with
all metadata of interest and store them locally in your chosen hierarchy
(e.g. one folder per album, if most images are only members of one album).

You could copy bits of Photini if it helps, but please get and use your
own API key. The Flickr developer guide is worth a read:
https://www.flickr.com/services/developer

Photini can upload to Google Photos, but the API is very limited
compared to how it was some years ago.

--
Jim Easterbrook <http://www.jim-easterbrook.me.uk/>