Migrate from Google Photos | PixelUnion - Free your photos from American tech platforms

PixelUnion

Transfer all your photos and videos from Google Photos to PixelUnion

Ready to bring all your memories from Google Photos to PixelUnion? It’s easier than you think! With our friendly in‑browser migration tool, you can seamlessly transfer your entire photo and video library—no technical skills required, no extra apps to install. Our servers handle everything for you, and because we use immich-go, your important details like dates and albums come along for the ride.

Getting started is simple: (1) export your Google Photos library with Google Takeout, (2) create an API key for PixelUnion, (3) upload your Takeout zip(s) and kick off the migration in the Portal, and (4) sit back while our servers do the work to bring your photos and videos home!

Why is this process a bit involved?

We understand that this migration process is more complicated and time-consuming than most people would expect. Unfortunately, Google—despite being a multi-billion dollar company—has designed their platform in a way that makes exporting your photos and videos more frustrating than it needs to be. There isn’t a simple one-click option to move your data elsewhere. Instead, you’re required to use their Takeout service, download large files, and manage manual transfers.

This approach is not exclusive to Google; many large tech companies make leaving their platform or moving data to another service deliberately challenging, often to keep users locked in. If Google truly wanted to make it easy for you to migrate your content, they could provide straightforward tools or direct integrations—but they don’t. As a result, we’ve done our best to make the PixelUnion import flow as smooth as possible using the available Google Takeout exports, so you can take control of your data and bring your memories over with minimal headaches.

This migration tool is currently in open beta. We welcome your feedback and suggestions — let us know how your experience goes!

Step 1: Export your photos with Google Takeout

Go to Google Takeout.
Click Deselect all, then scroll down and check only Google Photos.
Click Next step.
Choose:
- Export frequency: One-time export
- File type: .zip
- File size: 8 GB — this is the current maximum supported by our migration tool.
Click Create export. Google will start zipping all your files — this may take hours for large libraries. You will receive an email with a download link once the process is finished.
Download the .zip file(s) from the link in the email.

You do not need to unzip the files — the migration tool uses the Takeout zip(s) directly.

Step 2: Create an Immich API key

Log in to your PixelUnion site (your server address, e.g. yourname.pixelunion.eu).
Open your profile (top right) → Account settings → API Key.
Click New API key, give it a name (e.g. “Google Photos migration”), and copy the key.

After a successful migration, we delete your API key and all uploaded content from our servers.

The quickest option is to grant all permissions to the key. If you prefer to limit the key, use only these permissions (do not translate these names):

Permissions: limit the key to specific permissions (optional)

These permission are required:

asset.read, asset.statistics, asset.update, asset.upload, asset.copy, asset.replace, asset.delete, asset.download, album.create, album.read, albumAsset.create, server.about, stack.create, tag.asset, tag.create, user.read, server.storage.

Step 3: Run the migration in the Portal

Open PixelUnion Google Photos Migrator and log in if prompted.
Create a new migration and enter your environment name (e.g. your PixelUnion subdomain) and the API key you created in Step 2.
Upload your Google Takeout .zip file(s). You can upload multiple files if your export was split.
Adjust any options if needed, then start the migration.

Important

During the upload, keep your browser open and your computer on. If you close the tab or put your computer to sleep, the upload will stop.

The page will show the status (queued, running, completed). When the migration has completed, you can Finish migration to remove the uploaded data and API key from our servers. You can also Reset the migration if you want to run it again — this lets you retry without having to re-upload all the zip files.

Step 4: Be patient while the migration finishes

We run the migration in the background on our servers. This may take a long time — hours if your migration is large.

You will see your photos and videos start to appear in your PixelUnion environment as the import progresses. In the background, jobs are also creating thumbnails, running facial recognition, and processing metadata. All of this continues after the migration status shows completed. Please allow some time for everything to finish before expecting full functionality (e.g. search, thumbnails everywhere).

Using immich-go directly (CLI)

If you are comfortable with a terminal and the command line, you can use the immich-go CLI tool directly on your own computer, without the in-browser migration tool. This skips the upload to our servers — immich-go reads your Google Takeout export locally and sends photos and videos straight to your PixelUnion Immich instance. You need to download and run immich-go yourself, configure it with your API key and Immich URL, and point it at your exported Takeout directory. See the immich-go documentation for setup and usage instructions.

Need help?

If something goes wrong, try:

Smaller batches — Upload one or a few Takeout zip files at a time instead of everything at once.
Correct API key — Use the key from Account settings → API Key on your PixelUnion site, with no extra spaces when you paste it.
Correct URL — Your PixelUnion server URL ends with .pixelunion.eu.

When contacting support, please include:

A screenshot of the error or the migration page.
Your migration ID or any error message shown on the portal.
A short description of what you did and what went wrong.

You can reach our support team via the Contact Us page. We will get back to you as soon as we can.