Support non-English Google account languages

[legacjeremy]

First of all, thank you for this very useful tool, it works great and saves a lot of time 👍

Currently, GooglePhotosTakeoutHelper requires the Google account language to be set to English in order to work properly.
While this workaround is understandable, it can be inconvenient for non-English users like me (French).

To make it work, we have to change the preferred language for Google services on myaccount.google.com, wait several hours before launching the Google Takeout, and then switch the language back to our native one afterward.
This process is quite cumbersome and not very user-friendly.

It would be awesome if the tool could handle different Google account languages automatically.
This would simplify the setup process and greatly improve accessibility for international users.

Thanks again for your work, and feel free to let me know if I can help test or provide additional details 🙂

Related documentation:
https://kb.synology.com/fr-fr/DSM/tutorial/How_do_I_migrate_photos_from_Google_Photos

[ManuelDrescher]

I am german and used the tool several times on different german accounts in the last years.....never had any problem.

Currently, GooglePhotosTakeoutHelper requires the Google account language to be set to English in order to work properly.

What does this mean in detail?

[brandl-muc]

I'm German as well, and when I try to run gpth, I get the following result:

Okay, running... searching for everything in input folder...
...oh :(
...
I couldn't find any D: reasons for this may be:
  - you've already ran gpth and it moved all photos to output -
    delete the input folder and re-extract the zip
  - your Takeout doesn't have any "year folders" -
    visit https://github.com/TheLastGimbus/GooglePhotosTakeoutHelper
    again and request new, correct Takeout
After fixing this, go ahead and try again :)
[gpth quitted :( (code 13) - press enter to close]

Most likely reason is, that under the directory ./Takeout everything is German instead of English. Meaning that the next level is called Google Fotos instead of Google Photos and the next contains the album name, in my case the automatically generated album Fotos von 2025.
I haven't looked into the script yet, but I guess it depends on something like the directory being named Photos of 2025 or the like.

The weird thing is that I had used this exact same script before, likely a year ago.

edit: too bad, renaming these folders didn't help

[brandl-muc]

I don't speak Dart, but I found this:

  /// All album folders - that is, folders that were aside yearFolders and were
  /// not matching "Photos from ...." name

So I got the idea right but the English wrong.

After renaming again to match this pattern the script runs successfully.

The culprit is in lib/folder_classify.dart:

bool isYearFolder(Directory dir) =>
    RegExp(r'^Photos from (20|19|18)\d{2}$').hasMatch(p.basename(dir.path));

I don't get the Photos from the 1800s-part (uploads of scans?), but aside from that I also lack an idea how to make this culture-robust.

[Natsou40]

I do have the same issue as @legacjeremy and @brandl-muc
if I stick to my default google configuration, French, gpth can't analyse my export but if I switch to English and proceed again, it works perfectly
as it is a one of for me, it's just fine to perform that switch but it might be a good idea to add it to the gpth tutorial
Thanks again for that very useful tool!

[freeman69007]

I have exactly the same problem (french).
I have 40go that I transfered in my Nas but I cant use this tool

[Xentraxx]

Hey guys! You might want to try my fork. It's in more active development and I aim to support multiple languages.
https://github.com/Xentraxx/GooglePhotosTakeoutHelper
If anything does not work in your language, please create an issue.
I don't know how google calls various folders in different languages, so I need feedback and your input, to implement them.
Generally however, my fork is more advanced and should be able to handle the Photos from xxxx/Fotos von xxxx etc.
There are just some special folders, where I might not have the right translations yet.
Please check these constants and let me know if they are incorrect: https://github.com/Xentraxx/GooglePhotosTakeoutHelper/blob/cd26f1be5333296f822487f571afd9527c4bbb9f/lib/common/constants/constants.dart#L51 (I simply used a translator).