How to Transfer Photos From Dropbox to Google Photos in 2020
If you're looking to transfer photos from Dropbox to Google Photos, we provide easy step-by-step instructions — for free as well as with third-party solutions.
Whether you’re always looking for the best deals or you want as much free storage as possible, it’s important that you have an easy way to move photos from one cloud service to another. In this article, we’ll go through the best ways to transfer your photos from Dropbox to Google Photos without spending too much time or money.
There are many reasons why you might choose to move your photos to a different cloud storage provider. It could be that you’re concerned about duplicate photos, your Dropbox account is running out of free storage space or you want to move everything over to make use of Google Workspace’s tight integration.
Regardless of why you want to move them over, the best ways to transfer pictures between Dropbox and Google Photos are with the desktop apps or through a third-party application. These methods will also work with other popular services — such as OneDrive or pCloud — if Dropbox and Google Drive aren’t your preferred providers.
With its clean interface, decent duplicate detection and free unlimited storage for compressed photos (though this is due to change in June of 2021), Google Photos is a better cloud storage for this application. However, Dropbox is still a great option, especially if you’re already using it for your other files.
You can move photos between Dropbox and Google Photos with either the desktop apps or one of the several available cloud management services. This process is also similar for transferring files between any two cloud storage providers.
Using the desktop apps to transfer photos manually is completely free. However, if you’re using a free third-party app, there may be limits to how much data you can move. For example, MultCloud limits you to one file at a time, and you can transfer only 30GB per month.
How to Transfer Photos From Dropbox to Google Photos for Free
Downloading all of your data and reuploading it to Google Photos will take a lot of time, and third-party solutions often come with limits or costs. However, both Dropbox and Google Photos have desktop apps that you can use to move pictures around without any limitations.
- Download the Dropbox app
Download the Dropbox desktop app. This will give you access to a menu in the system tray and a “Dropbox” folder within Windows File Explorer.
If you don’t already have it, download the Dropbox app to your computer. - Download the Google “backup and sync” app
Download the Google Workshop “backup and sync” app and set it up to sync your “pictures” folder into Google Photos. Alternatively, you can move the pictures from Dropbox to Google Drive by using the “Google Drive” folder that “backup and sync” creates.
Set Google “backup and sync” to upload pictures to Google Photos. - Move your photos
Open up both the “Dropbox” and “pictures” folders, select the photos you want to move from inside the “Dropbox” folder and then drag or copy them into your “pictures” folder.
Move your photos out of the Dropbox folder and into the pictures folder. - Wait for Google Photos to sync all of the files
Once inside the “pictures” folder, your images should automatically upload to Google Photos. You can check that you’ve uploaded them correctly by looking for your photos on another connected device or through the Google Photos website.
Check online or on another device to make sure your pictures were all uploaded.
Third-Party Solutions for Transferring Photos From Dropbox to Google Photos
Manually sharing files between two cloud storage providers is great, but having to download photos to a computer whenever you want to move them will quickly become a pain. Luckily, you have the option of using a third-party application to help keep things quick and simple, even if you have many services you want to sync or multiple accounts with each provider.
Although there are many cloud-to-cloud management services to suit specific requirements, MultCloud is currently the best for most users. As long as you don’t plan to transfer more than 30GB each month, this free service can help you move or sync files with ease.
- Sign in to MultCloud
Go to MultCloud.com and create an account. Follow the steps to activate your free account, and then sign in.
Create a MultCloud account and sign in. - Add your Google Photos and Dropbox accounts
In the “add cloud drives” tab, select Dropbox and give MultCloud access to your Dropbox account. Then do the same for Google Photos.
Add your Dropbox and Google Photos accounts to MultCloud. - Find your pictures in the Dropbox tab
Go into the Dropbox tab and find the pictures you want to move. You can select as many as you want to add to the queue, although MultCloud will transfer only one at a time.
Go through the folders in the Dropbox tab to find your photos. - Copy the photos you want to move
When you’ve selected all the images you want to move, right-click on the images and choose “copy to.”
Select “copy to” to move photos from Dropbox to your Google account. - Select a folder in Google Photos
In the “copy to” window, click on the arrow next to Google Photos, select the “photos” folder and click “transfer.”
Choose where MultCloud will upload your images. - Wait for the files to copy over
A list of the files you selected will appear in the bottom right, which will disappear when the transfer is complete. You can also check that everything has moved over fine by looking for the images in Google Photos.
Wait for MultCloud to move your Dropbox photos to Google Photos. - Delete the files from Dropbox
Once you’ve moved all the photos over, you can delete these pictures from Dropbox. This can be done inside MultCloud by selecting all the images you want to delete, right-clicking on them and selecting “delete.”
Go through the folders in Dropbox and delete the files that you moved.
Final Thoughts
When it comes to storing photos on the cloud, Dropbox and Google Photos are two of the best, and using both is a great way to keep images separate. However, if you’re looking to store your pictures in one place, you can simply switch them across with either the desktop apps or a third-party solution.
Although MultCloud is our favorite choice for managing multiple cloud storage folders, there are other options. For one-off migrations and moving files, you should pick a service like CloudFuze, whereas CloudHQ is a better choice for an ongoing cloud-to-cloud sync.
You can also read our guide on migrating from Dropbox to Google Drive.
Do you store your photos with cloud storage? Have you moved files from Dropbox to Google Photos? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below. Thanks for reading.
With a handful of A-levels completed, Robin followed his passions for learning and informing others, finding a place among the CommQueR.com team. Between writing about software and creating fantasy worlds, he’s either losing games of Civilisation or darting about the UK in search of inspiring views and learning about each area’s history.