I filled up my 15GB of space on Google Photos.

I always thought the photos were kind of stuck in there. I knew I could download them, but I didn’t want to do it through their web interface. That would be very cumbersome as I have many photos.

I discovered I could enable a folder within my Google Drive that contained all of my Google Photos.

• I could use this folder with my Google Drive desktop app and sync/download all the files in Google Photos.
• I like my photos being original quality, but once you reach 15GB (limit for free users) the backups are limited to “high quality” which are compressed.
• I can use this interface to move photos out and free up space.

Enable Google Photos folder within Google Drive

To enable this folder:

Google Drive > Google Photos >

Sign in to drive.google.com

Open the settings:

Enable “Create a google photos folder”:

Once that’s done, you’ll immediately see the Google Photos folder added to your Drive.

It has a great structure:

• Google Drive > Google Photos > Year > Month > {photos for the month}

From here you can manipulate your Google Photos library from your file system to greater enhance flexibility, backup ability, maintenance, etc.