Sync Google Photos to Google Drive — Organize and Back Up Your Photo Library with RcloneView
Google Photos and Google Drive are separate cloud remotes in rclone—RcloneView lets you sync your entire photo library between them with a few clicks and schedule it to run automatically.
Many photographers and teams use Google Photos as their primary capture-and-organize tool while relying on Google Drive for structured file sharing and collaboration. The problem: these are two distinct cloud services in rclone, and content doesn't automatically flow between them. A wedding photographer managing tens of thousands of processed images in Google Photos may need those files accessible in a structured Google Drive folder for client deliverables and long-term archiving. RcloneView connects both services from the same interface, making it straightforward to transfer, sync, and schedule photo migrations between them without any command-line work.
Manage & Sync All Clouds in One Place
RcloneView is a cross-platform GUI for rclone. Compare folders, transfer or sync files, and automate multi-cloud workflows with a clean, visual interface.
- One-click jobs: Copy · Sync · Compare
- Schedulers & history for reliable automation
- Works with Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, S3, WebDAV, SFTP and more
Free core features. Plus automations available.
Connecting Google Photos and Google Drive in RcloneView
Both Google Photos and Google Drive use browser-based OAuth authentication. In RcloneView, open the Remote tab and click New Remote, then select Google Photos and complete the browser sign-in. Repeat the process to add Google Drive as a second remote. Within a few minutes, both accounts appear as separate panels in the dual-pane file explorer.
With both remotes visible side by side, you can browse your Google Photos library alongside your Google Drive folder structure in the same window. This parallel view makes it easy to spot which photo albums or date ranges haven't been transferred yet, and to drag individual folders across for quick one-time copies. The drag-and-drop confirmation popup (togglable in Settings) prevents accidental moves when working across large libraries.
Setting Up a Sync Job to Transfer Your Photo Library
For bulk transfers, use the Job Manager to create a dedicated sync job. Click the Sync button from the Home tab, select your Google Photos folder as the source, and choose the target folder in Google Drive as the destination. The 4-step wizard lets you configure concurrent transfer streams, enable checksum verification to catch corrupted files during transit, and apply file size or age filters if you want to exclude videos or only pull photos from a specific period.
Before running the full transfer, use the Dry Run feature to preview exactly which files will be copied—essential when syncing large archives where you want to avoid accidentally overwriting an already-organized Drive folder with duplicates. The dry run shows a full list of planned operations without making any actual changes.
The Transferring tab at the bottom of the screen provides live transfer monitoring—progress percentage, current transfer speed, and file counts—so you can track a large photo migration without guessing how much is left.
Scheduling Automatic Photo Syncs (PLUS License)
For photographers or teams who upload to Google Photos continuously, a one-time transfer isn't enough. With a PLUS license, you can schedule recurring sync jobs using crontab-style scheduling. Configure a nightly job to pull any newly added Google Photos into a corresponding Google Drive folder, keeping both accounts current without manual intervention. The scheduler supports fine-grained intervals: run by minute, hour, day of week, day of month, or month.
Job History records every execution—when it ran, how many files transferred, total data size, speed, and whether it completed or errored. If a network issue interrupts a session, RcloneView retries automatically (default 3 attempts) and logs the outcome so you can review it later.
Getting Started
- Download RcloneView from rcloneview.com.
- Add Google Photos via Remote tab > New Remote > Google Photos, then authenticate via browser.
- Add Google Drive as a second remote the same way.
- Create a Sync job in the Job Manager, select Google Photos as source and a Google Drive folder as destination, run a Dry Run first, then execute the full transfer.
Syncing your Google Photos library into Google Drive takes minutes to configure with RcloneView, giving you structured file access and a reliable secondary copy of your entire photo collection.
Related Guides:
- Manage Google Photos Storage — Sync and Backup Files with RcloneView
- Manage Google Drive Storage — Sync and Backup Files with RcloneView
- Back Up Google Photos to External Drive and NAS with RcloneView
Supported Cloud Providers
