GooglePhotosTakeoutHelper is a tool that processes Google Photos Takeout exports by decompressing multi-part archives, extracting photos, and restoring original metadata, timestamps, and album structures. It functions as an archive extraction tool, metadata restoration utility, and album structure reconstructor, consolidating scattered export folders into an organized local file system.
It resolves creation dates from JSON sidecar files first, then falls back to Exif tags embedded in image files for maximum accuracy. The tool handles multi-part ZIP and TGZ archives transparently by scanning sequentially numbered archive parts and concatenating them before extraction. It reconstructs the original Google Photos album hierarchy from export metadata, preserving trash and archive folders with nested structure. Photos are organized into a single flat directory or subfolders grouped by year-month or album, and file modification timestamps are set to the extracted original creation dates.
The project provides a command-line interface that processes Google Photos Takeout archives end‑to‑end, from decompression to final folder organization, without requiring manual extraction of individual archive parts.