Guide

Google Takeout JSON files: what to do with them

Open a Google Photos Takeout and about half the files are .json. They hold the date each photo was taken, where, and its caption. Don't delete them until that information is inside the photos.

• IMG_1180.jpgIMG_1180.jpg.supplemental-metadata.jsonThe name used since 2024.
• IMG_20160514_101522.jpgIMG_20160514_101522.jpg.jsonThe older name. Both can turn up in one export.
• Tram 28 climbing the hills in Alfama.jpgTram 28 climbing the hills in Alfama.jpg.suppl.jsonLong names are cut at 51 characters.
• metadata.jsonOne per album folder: the album's title and date, not a photo's.

What's in them

A shortened example from the Takeoutfix sample library:

{
  "title": "IMG_1180.jpg",
  "description": "First swim of the year",
  "photoTakenTime": { "timestamp": "1484454605", "formatted": "Jan 15, 2017, 4:30:05 AM UTC" },
  "creationTime": { "timestamp": "1484471520", ... },
  "geoData": { "latitude": -33.8915, "longitude": 151.2767, "altitude": 3, ... },
  "geoDataExif": { "latitude": -33.8915, "longitude": 151.2767, ... },
  "people": [ { "name": "..." } ],
  "favorited": true
}

More on the dates in photoTakenTime vs creationTime.

Can I delete the JSON files?

Only after their contents are in the photos. Many photos carry their own date already, but screenshots, saved images, Google Photos edits and many videos have their only correct date in the JSON. Delete the JSON first and those dates are gone; every app will show the day you exported.

Once the dates and places are written into the files, the JSON files have nothing more to give most people, and you can leave them out when importing. Apple Photos, Lightroom and most NAS apps ignore them anyway.

Three ways to use them

1. ExifTool, free, on the command line

ExifTool reads a JSON file like any other metadata, so it can copy fields from the JSON into the photo next to it. Extract every zip part into one folder, work on a copy, and run:

exiftool -r -d %s -api QuickTimeUTC -tagsfromfile "%d%F.supplemental-metadata.json" \
  "-DateTimeOriginal<PhotoTakenTimeTimestamp" "-CreateDate<PhotoTakenTimeTimestamp" \
  "-FileModifyDate<PhotoTakenTimeTimestamp" \
  "-GPSLatitude<GeoDataLatitude" "-GPSLatitudeRef<GeoDataLatitude" \
  "-GPSLongitude<GeoDataLongitude" "-GPSLongitudeRef<GeoDataLongitude" \
  "-ImageDescription<Description" \
  --ext json -overwrite_original -progress "Takeout/Google Photos"

Run it again with "%d%F.json" for files with the older name. The wrong-date guide explains each part and what it misses (cut-off names, duplicates, edited copies). The location guide covers the 0, 0 case.

2. Google Photos Takeout Helper, free and open source

A command-line program that sorts a Takeout into folders by date and, in its maintained fork, writes dates, places and captions using ExifTool. How it compares.

3. Takeoutfix, in the browser

Add the zip parts to Takeoutfix and it matches every photo and video to its JSON (whole names, cut-off names, duplicates, edited copies), then writes the date, place and caption into a fixed copy. Nothing is extracted by hand and nothing is uploaded. The scan and 100 photos and videos are free, so you can check the result in your photo app; the whole library is $9, once.

JSON files with no photo

Some JSON files have no photo next to them. Usually the photo is in another zip part, so check that every part is downloaded and extracted into the same folder. Album folders also have one metadata.json each, describing the album, which you can ignore.

Related guides

• What .supplemental-metadata.json means in Google Takeout
• .suppl.json, ..json and other cut-off names in Google Takeout
• Google Takeout photos have the wrong date: why, and how to fix it