Transferring photos and videos from Google Photos to Apple iCloud Photos is now a whole lot easier

Interoperability between rival platforms, including the ability to easily transfer data from one to another, is something that only really benefits users. There is little, if anything, positive to stem from one company making it easy to move to a competitor.

But when it comes to cloud storage for photos and videos, migrating from Google to Apple is being simplified. While transferring Google Photos to iCloud has been possible for a while, the process has been an uphill struggle. Now this is changing.

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As members of the Data Transfer Initiative, Apple and Google have worked together to simplify and streamline the photo migration process. Moving from iCloud to Google Photos was made easy a while back, and now the principle of reciprocity at the heart of the DTI means the reverse has become less arduous too.

Announcing the improved migration process, Chris Riley of the DTI says that trust is central to the cloud.

Beginning today, Apple and Google are expanding on their direct data transfer offerings to allow users of Google Photos to transfer their collections directly to iCloud Photos. This complements and completes the existing transfers that were first made possible from iCloud Photos to Google Photos and fulfills a core Data Transfer Initiative (DTI) principle of reciprocity. The offering from Apple and Google will be rolling out over the next week and is the newest tool powered by the open source Data Transfer Project (DTP) technology stack, joining existing direct portability tools available to billions of people today offered by DTI and its founding partners Apple, Google, and Meta.

Data portability is vital, with no one relishing the idea of being tied to one service forever. These two big names working together for the benefit of customers is pleasing, but there is still a lot to do, and many other services that need to simplify migration.

Both Apple and Google have more information about migrating photos between their respective services.