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Google Takeout Import Tool for Proton Drive

Dear Proton Team,

I’d like to propose a new feature for Proton Drive: a dedicated Google Takeout Import Tool to streamline the process of importing data from Google Photos exports while correctly respecting the photo/video timeline.

🛠️ Issue

When importing videos from a Google Photos Takeout archive (photos are mostly ok), Proton Drive currently sets the file’s date based on the filesystem timestamp (e.g., when the .mp4 file was downloaded), rather than using the actual creation date stored in the accompanying .json metadata files.

This leads to incorrect chronological ordering and loss of accurate historical context—especially for older media and large libraries.

✅ Suggested Solution

Introduce a Google Takeout Import Tool in Proton Drive that:

  • Detects and parses .json metadata files included with Google Photos exports
  • Extracts photoTakenTime or creationTime values
  • Applies the correct created timestamp to the corresponding media file (photo or video)

This ensures accurate and consistent date metadata across all imported files.

📦 Example

Let’s say I have these two files in my Takeout folder:

  • VID_20170621_122134.mp4
  • VID_20170621_122134.json

With the json file having the following content:

{
  "title": "VID_20170621_122134.mp4",
  "creationTime": {
    "timestamp": "1498044094",
    "formatted": "2017-06-21T12:21:34.000Z"
  },
  "photoTakenTime": {
    "timestamp": "1498044094",
    "formatted": "2017-06-21T12:21:34.000Z"
  }
}

When I upload a video to Proton Drive, it should use the PhotoTakenTime from the accompanying JSON file as the creation date. Without proper handling of these JSON files, the file download date (e.g., July 2, 2025) is used instead—resulting in an inaccurate and cluttered timeline. This mainly affects videos, as photos generally retain metadata better. A dedicated import tool is especially important for users migrating years of content from Google Photos.

🎯 Benefit

Adding this import tool would:

  • Preserve the original timeline of a user's photo/video history
  • Improve sorting and searching by date
  • Offer a smoother transition for users migrating from Google services

Thanks for your continued focus on privacy and usability. I hope this feature can be considered for a future update so I can fully switch my Google Photo library to Proton Drive.

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Mike Roads shared this idea  ·   ·  Report…  ·  Admin →
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  • Nassim commented  ·   ·  Report

    I went through this process myself as I transitioned from Google Photos to Proton Photos. This is what I did:

    1. Exported my data via google takeout
    2. Consolidated the many zip files (on mac `ditto -x -k -V takeout-*.zip result 1>log.txt 2>&1`)
    3. Ran MetaSort : https://github.com/iamsanmith/MetaSort see README there

    That got me through the photos rather cleanly.
    Now for the videos - Proton Drive preserves the original EXIF creation date for photos when uploaded, ensuring accurate timeline placement. However, videos often lose their correct creation date when imported via Google Takeout or direct upload, as Proton Drive uses the file’s "last modified" date instead of the original metadata (e.g., "media created" date), resulting in a disrupted timeline.

    So I used the exiftool to copy the Created Date into the Modified Time - for a single file, it looks like `exiftool "-FileModifyDate<CreateDate" IMG_0093.MOV`

    I used the below python script to go through my folder of videos:

    ```
    #!/usr/bin/env python3

    import subprocess
    import sys
    import os

    def check_exiftool():
    try:
    subprocess.run(['exiftool', '-ver'], capture_output=True, check=True)
    except (subprocess.CalledProcessError, FileNotFoundError):
    print("Error: exiftool not found. Install it with: brew install exiftool")
    sys.exit(1)

    def sync_dates_recursive(path):
    if not os.path.exists(path):
    print(f"Error: {path} does not exist")
    return False

    try:
    result = subprocess.run(
    ['exiftool', '-r', '-overwrite_original', '-FileModifyDate<CreateDate', path],
    capture_output=True,
    text=True,
    check=True
    )
    print(result.stdout)
    return True
    except subprocess.CalledProcessError as e:
    print(f"Error processing {path}: {e.stderr}")
    return False

    if __name__ == '__main__':
    if len(sys.argv) < 2:
    print("Usage: python3 script.py <directory>")
    sys.exit(1)

    check_exiftool()

    for path in sys.argv[1:]:
    sync_dates_recursive(path)

    print("Done!")

    ```

    4. Finally I batched uploaded all the photos/videos in chunks to not choke the Proton Drive web uploaded.

  • Michael commented  ·   ·  Report

    I had the same issues with videos and photos during manual import. In Google Photos, the videos and photos were still shown in the correct chronological order. During import, however, it seems that the metadata of the media is not read correctly, and the creation date is used as a reference instead of the capture date.

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