How to Find Backed Up Photos on Google

Easily find backed up photos on Google Photos with your computer or phone

Last Updated: August 28, 2022 Tested

This wikiHow teaches you how to find and download an archive of all your backed-up photos and videos from your Google Photos library using a computer, phone, or tablet. If your photos are already backed up, signing in with your account will automatically sync your pictures. You can download all your backed-up pictures and videos in a compressed archive file (ZIP or TGZ), and view, edit or store them on your local storage. Alternatively, you can download individual pictures from your backup cloud in the iOS and Android mobile app.

Method 1

Method 1 of 2:

Using Google Takeout on a Computer

1
Open https://takeout.google.com/ in your internet browser. This page allows you to extract and download an archive of all your backed-up photos.
- You can use any desktop or mobile internet browser.
2
Sign in with your Google Photos account. Use your email address or phone number and your password, and sign in to the account your photo back-ups are saved.

Advertisement
3
Click or tap Deselect all at the top of the "Products" list. This is a blue button in the upper-right corner of the data type list. It will deselect all the options.
4
Click and check the
box next to "Google Photos." Find the Google Photos option on the data list, and make sure the box next to it is checked.
5
Click the Next step button at the bottom. This is a blue button at the bottom of the product list.
6
Select a delivery method for your photo archive. Click the drop-down menu under the "Delivery method" heading, and select how you want to receive your photos.
- You can get a link sent to your email address, and download it to your local storage.
- Alternatively, you can automatically get the pictures uploaded to Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive or Box cloud.
- Optionally, you can play with some other settings here to schedule automatic archive downloads, change the compression file type to TGZ, or change the maximum file size for each archival package.
7
Click the Create archive button. This is a blue button in the lower-right corner. This will create a compressed archive file of all your backed-up photos, and send your mailbox a direct link for download.
8
Click the Download button. When your archive is ready for download, it'll show up on your available archives list on this page. Click this button to download the package.
- This will download a ZIP file to your computer. If you're prompted, select a saving location.
- Alternatively, click the download link from your mailbox. You'll receive an automated email with a download link when your archive is ready.
9
Open the downloaded ZIP file on your computer. You can find all your backed-up pictures and albums in the Google Photos folder here.

Method 2

Method 2 of 2:

Using Google Photos on a Phone or Tablet

1
Open the Google Photos app on your iPhone, iPad or Android. The Photos icon looks like a colored pinwheel with red, yellow, blue, and green arms. You can find it on your home screen, in an app folder or on the Apps tray.
2
Tap the
Photos tab at the bottom. This button is on a navigation bar in the lower-left corner of your screen. You can find all your pictures here.
3
Check the backup message at the top. You can see at the top if your photos are backed up, currently uploading or waiting to back up.
- Your photos may be backed up automatically depending on the settings you have enabled.
- If you're not sure how to enable backups in Google Photos, make sure to check out this article for iOS and this article for Android.
4
Tap the picture you want to download. You can tap any picture, and open it in full-screen.
5
Tap the three-dot icon on the top-right. This will open your options on a drop-down menu.
6
Tap Save to device on the menu. This will instantly download a full-size copy of the selected picture to your phone or tablet's local storage.
- Your backup will not be deleted from the cloud when you download a picture.
- If you don’t want to use Google Takeout or Google Photos, you can always use the iCloud backup if you use Apple products.