Google Photos has been my go-to photo and video backup solution for years at this point. It’s well thought out, has an impressive search function, and it’s completely free. Or at least it was. Starting June 1, 2021, new photos that you back up on Google Photos will count towards your free 15GB quota. That means you will have to buy Google One plans to increase your storage limit. So, if you are thinking of switching away from Google Photos, here is how to move pictures from Google Photos to iCloud.

As an iPhone owner and someone who is deeply entrenched in the Apple ecosystem, using Google Photos only gave me one distinct advantage — free storage for my photos and videos that was accessible anywhere I want. However, now that the unlimited free plan is going away, I (and several other iPhone users) are faced with a very important question. Should we stick with Google Photos and pay for Google One or buy an iCloud subscription and move to Apple’s photo service instead?

  • Move Some Photos from Google Photos to iCloud Photos
  • Transfer Your Entire Google Photos Library to iCloud
  • Enable Automatic Backups for iCloud Photos

How to Move Some Photos from Google Photos to iCloud

First, let’s see how you can move a select few photos from Google Photos to iCloud. You should use this method if your Google Photos library is full of random pictures (because it was free and you never cared about seeing what gets uploaded) and you only want some of these pictures to be available on iCloud, where you are paying for the storage. Follow the steps to see how it works:

  • Then, download them by choosing the download option in the “More” menu (three-dot icon) at the top right corner, or using the keyboard shortcut “shift+D”.

There’s a higher chance that you want to shift your entire Google Photos library to iCloud. So let’s check out how you can move your entire library from Google Photos to iCloud. It is, however, a time-consuming process because you will need to ask Google for a copy of your entire library of photos and videos in the cloud.

Based on how many pictures you click regularly and how long you’ve been using Google Photos, it could be a massive number of photos and videos.

As I mentioned above, this process can take quite some time. You don’t have to keep the page open or active if you don’t want to. You can navigate away from it and do anything you want. Google will send you an email when your export is ready for download, and you can then download your entire Photos library from the link in the email.

That’s it. You have successfully moved your Google Photos library to iCloud. Do note that the process of uploading photos and videos to iCloud can also take a long time depending on how many images and videos you have, so be patient.

The best thing about Google Photos is automatic backups, right? Well, you get that feature with iCloud Photos as well. Now that you have moved from Google Photos to iCloud, here’s how to enable automatic backup for iCloud Photos.

  • On your iPhone, go to “Settings -> Photos”, and enable the toggle next to “iCloud Photos” on this page.