Google, Apple Partner to Bring New Tool That Allows for Easy Media Transfer Across Devices

Google is introducing a new initiative that makes transferring data from Google Photos to iCloud Photos easier, the company announced on Wednesday. To achieve this, the Mountain View-based tech giant has teamed up with Apple to bring support for iCloud Photos to Google's data portability initiative – Google Takeout – enabling seamless transfer of media to iCloud Photos without deleting it from Google's library that requires downloading the data.

Apple-Google Partnership

According to a blog post by Data Transfer Initiative, a forum which develops open-source tools for easy transfer of data across devices, Google and Apple have teamed up to introduce a new tool powered by the open-source Data Transfer Project (DTP) technology stack. The feature is said to be rolled out to users next week.

Both Apple and Google's support forums now include details regarding the transfer of media from Google Photos to iCloud Photos. According to Apple, users will now see iCloud Photos as a destination in Google Takeout. They can then choose the data they wish to transfer and share permissions media visibility permissions with Google.

The photos and videos will appear in a new “Import from Google” album in the Photos app. The media will also carry the date of the transfer. If some of the photos or videos are missing, they will be available in a folder in Drive with the same name. Once the data transfer is complete, Apple says users will receive a confirmation via email. If, for some reason, iCloud Photos is turned off during the process, only the already transferred media will be visible on the Apple device, as per the company.

Only transfer of photo and video files is supported. As per Apple, other media such as Motion Photos, Live Photos, or Memories cannot be transferred. It supports image formats such as JPEG, HEIC or PNG, and MP4 and MOV video formats. Those photos and videos which cannot be transferred to iCloud Photos are shifted to the iCloud Drive.

This move is part of the data transfer initiative introduced by Apple, Google, and Meta. It aims to enhance data portability by enabling users to transfer their data on the web across devices.