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I recently uploaded my personal photos to google photos but it seems it did not upload all my photos. I have around 20k photos so manual checking is not feasible.

I tried removing the data folder under the AppData for Google Photos Backup app to rescan the local folder but it hasn't helped.

Then I did following:

  1. Enabled Google Photos to appear under Google Drive.
  2. Create a Java program using Google Drive API to list all files available.
  3. The file list gave me around 16k files so there are around 4k missing.

I can't just try to find missing files by name because the local files were in many different folders with same names i.e. different photos but same name due to reset of the camera sequence number. Also, the md5checksum retrieved from Google Drive is different than the local checksum (checked on few known files), I guess this is because Google Photos does not store the original version with unlimited free storage settings.

So how do I find these missing 4k files which are not uploaded.

Some other things. When I reset the Google Photos Backup desktop uploader application by removing its data folder from AppDate/Local/Google/Photos/..., it triggered a long rescan of the current folder. In the application log, I also found lines like these..

[98000] id 9: Stream summary:
POST request: https://www.googleapis.com/plus/v1whitelisted/media/batchSearch (200)
Post data size: 603
[98000] Local Hash Dedupping:
  D:\OneDrive\Pictures\Camera Roll\20150706_022055815_iOS.jpg            : Media exists
  D:\OneDrive\Pictures\Camera Roll\20150706_022416250_iOS.jpg            : Media exists

and there were around 19k files with status "Media exists" but my program listed only 16k files so that's a huge difference.

Also, the above log statements suggests that there is some form of hash comparison being performed by the google photos desktop application to detect what files have been uploaded or missed. But then google drive checksum is different than local checksum so how can google photos application can use this checksum?

I know there are around 400 small files that have been filtered but this still does not explain the difference of 600 or 3600 files.

So I have the following numbers...

  1. Actual local files 20k
  2. Files with "Media exists" in the google photos application log after resetting the application, 19k
  3. Files listed by my program 16k.

Can somebody help.

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  • I wonder if the missing files had the same file name? Google thought they were duplicates?
    – Moab
    Jul 12, 2015 at 1:36

2 Answers 2

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Google Photos automatically removes duplicates (same name doesn't count), perhaps use "Duplicate File Finder" to check your photos for duplicates with 100% match.

Also, are you sure that you only have 400 small files? I had a similar problem but it turned out I had a lot more small files than I thought.

I did a bit of testing and found that the smallest file that can be uploaded with the Desktop Uploader has a minimum resolution of 512px in either width or height.

Eg:

  • 511 x 511 - Will not upload with Desktop Uploader*
  • 512 x 1 - Will upload
  • 1 x 512 - Will upload

*Workaround: upload using web-browser

Also to view total number of photos:

  1. Enable Google Photos to appear under Google Drive
  2. Go to Google Drive and select Google Photos from left hand column
  3. Scroll to very bottom of photos and select all photos (Ctrl+A)
  4. Left click on highlighted photo and drag - total number of pictures will be shown
  5. MAKE SURE NOT TO DRAG PHOTOS INTO A NEW FOLDER
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Here are a few ideas :

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