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Google Photos uploader CLI
Command line tool to mass upload media folders to your Google Photos account(s).
While the official tool only supports Mac OS and Windows, this brings an uploader to Linux too. Lets you upload photos from, in theory, any OS for which you can compile a Go program.
Features
- Customizable configuration: via JSON-like config file.
- Multiple Google accounts support: upload your pictures to multiple accounts.
- Filter files with patterns: include/exclude files & folders using patterns (see documentation).
- Resumable uploads: Uploads can be resumed, saving time and bandwidth.
- File deletion after uploading: Clean up local files after being uploaded.
- Track already uploaded files: uploads only new files to save bandwidth.
- Secure: logs you into Google using OAuth (so this app doesn't have to know your password), and stores your temporary access code in your OS's secure storage (keyring/keychain).
Limitations
Rate Limiting
Google Photos imposes a rate limit on all API clients. The quota limit for requests to the Library API is 10,000 requests per project per day. The quota limit for requests to access media bytes (by loading a photo or video from a base URL) is 75,000 requests per project per day.
Photo storage and quality
All media items uploaded to Google Photos using the API are stored in full resolution at original quality. They count toward the user’s storage.
Getting started
Install
You can install the pre-compiled binary (in several different ways) or compile from source.
Here are the steps for each of them:
Install the pre-compiled binary
homebrew tap (only on macOS for now):
$ brew install gphotosuploader/tap/gphotos-uploader-cli
manually
Download the pre-compiled binaries from the releases page and copy to the desired location.
Compiling from source
This project will maintain compatibility with the last two Go major versions published. It could work with other versions but we can't support it.
You can compile the source code in your system.
$ git clone https://github.com/gphotosuploader/gphotos-uploader-cli
$ cd gphotos-uploader-cli
$ make build
Or you can use go get
if you prefer it:
$ go get github.com/gphotosuploader/gphotos-uploader-cli
Configure
First initialize the config file using this command:
$ gphotos-uploader-cli init
Default configuration folder is ~/.gphotos-uploader-cli
but you can specify your own folder using --config /my/config/dir
. Configuration is kept in the config.hjson
file inside this folder.
You must review the documentation to specify your Google Photos API credentials, APIAppCredentials
. You should tune your jobs
configuration also.
Run
Once it's configured you can start uploading files in this way:
$ gphotos-uploader-cli push
First time run
The first time you run gphotos-uploader-cli
, after setting your configuration (Google Photos API credentials), few manual steps are needed:
- You should get an output like this one:
Visit the following URL in your browser:
https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/auth?access_type=offline&client_id=...
After completing the authorization flow, enter the authorization code here:
- Open a browser and point to the previous URL. Select the account where you wan to upload your files (the same you configured in the config file). You will see something like this:

- After that, you should confirm that you trust on
gphotos-uploader-cli
to access to your Google Photos account, click on Go to gphotos-uploader:

- Finally Google will ask you to confirm permission Google Photos account:

- A page with a code is shown in your browser, copy this code and go back to the terminal.
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- Paste the previous code in your terminal to complete the process.
After completing the authorization flow, enter the authorization code here: 4/4QFPtCv11dN3a-hVYhHkMryZe5g
All auth configuration is in place.
Contributing
Help us make gphotos-uploader-cli
the best tool for uploading your local pictures to Google Photos.
Reporting Issues
If you find a bug while working with gphotos-uploader-cli
, please open an issue on GitHub and let us know what went wrong. We will try to fix it as quickly as we can.
Feedback & Feature Requests
You are more than welcome to open issues in this project to:
Contributing Code
This project is mainly written in Golang. If you want to contribute code, see Contributing guide lines for more information.
License
Use of this source code is governed by an MIT-style license that can be found in the LICENSE MIT file.