Google photos backup making folders=album

Help and Support
1

What is the problem you are having with rclone?

is it true that the copy command just dumps the files from all the albums into the destination?
and that for each album to be put into a separate folder than a script will be required to iterate through all the folder names and then make the local folder and then do the copy, rinse and repeat?
i just want to verify that i am understanding how things work before i go off and write that script.

What is your rclone version (output from rclone version)

yes.

Which cloud storage system are you using? (eg Google Drive)

google photos

The command you were trying to run (eg rclone copy /tmp remote:tmp)

rclone copy googlephotos:album q:\myphotos\

The rclone config contents with secrets removed.

Paste config here

A log from the command with the -vv flag

Paste  log here
2

hello and welcome to the forum,

rclone copy will copy the directory structure and files of the source to the dest.
in this case, the source is gphotos and the dest is local.
in effect, the dest will mirror the source to the dest.

3

thanks for your reply, but i'm not sure it is performing like you say.
here is my command to copy a single album from my google photos account to a local folder:

rclone copy googlephotos:album/20170412-BASEMENT-AFTER-MUDDING q:/BACKUP/GOOGLEPHOTOS

after i execute this command, ALL the files simply get copied to Q:\BACKUP\GOOGLEPHOTOS
and a new sub-folder of the album name, is NOT created.
i'd like a folder for each album to get created, and the files put in that folder.

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4

that is how rclone works and is documented here

have to specify where you want the source files copied to.
rclone copy googlephotos:album/20170412-BASEMENT-AFTER-MUDDING q:/BACKUP/GOOGLEPHOTOS/album/20170412-BASEMENT-AFTER-MUDDING

5

yeah, thanks again for your reply.
i understand that the command can create the folder if it is specified, but that was not my question.
i was asking if it could simply create the folders for each of the album names, WITHOUT specifying them explicitly.
as you know, to blow out the album names and then make folder names for all the albums, some scripting would be involved, which i'd rather avoid if it was an action built into the copy command.

i'm sure there are valid reasons if it doesn't exist, but i can't think of any off-hand.

i guess i can use rclone sync.

6

sorry, i guess i am not understanding your goal.
you want to backp all albums?

if true, that what is wrong with
rclone sync googlephotos:album q:\myphotos
in my quick testing, that seems to make copy of each gphoto album as local storage

rclone.exe sync gphotos01:album d:\dest -v
2021/09/28 11:36:28 INFO  : 02/02.jpg: Copied (new)
2021/09/28 11:36:29 INFO  : 01/01.jpg: Copied (new)
2021/09/28 11:36:29 INFO  :

rclone.exe tree gphotos01:album
/
├── 01
│   └── 01.jpg
└── 02
    └── 02.jpg

rclone.exe tree d:\dest
/
├── 01
│   └── 01.jpg
└── 02
    └── 02.jpg
7

aside from my 'goal' i was just asking about the copy command.

sync has some additional 'functionality' which may or may not be desired in my particular use-case.

thanks again for your input and guidance.

8

copy will copy/update files from source to dest, without deleting files in the dest.

in this case, i manually deleted gphotos01:album/02/02.jpg and used the copy command.
notice that d:\dest\02\02.jpg still exists

rclone sync would have deleted d:\dest\02\02.jpg

rclone.exe copy gphotos01:album d:\dest -v
2021/09/28 11:57:58 INFO  : There was nothing to transfer

rclone.exe tree gphotos01:album
/
├── 01
│   └── 01.jpg
└── 02

rclone.exe tree d:\dest
/
├── 01
│   └── 01.jpg
└── 02
    └── 02.jpg
9

yeah, that's basically what i'm trying to achieve - a 'backup' mode that would just aggregate from source to destination, creating files and folders as necessary - no deleting.
could script using copy, just an extra step i was hoping to avoid if possible.

10

you want to copy a multiple set of source folders to a single dest folder?

if correct, you must have a list of the folder names.

if the source folders are subfolders of the same root folder, you can use
--include or --include-from

rclone.exe copy gphotos01:album d:\dest -v --include="/01/**" --include="/02/**"
INFO  : 02/02.jpg: Copied (new)
INFO  : 01/01.jpg: Copied (new)

rclone.exe tree gphotos01:album
/
├── 01
│   └── 01.jpg
├── 02
│   └── 02.jpg
└── 03
    └── 03.jpg

rclone.exe tree d:\dest
/
├── 01
│   └── 01.jpg
└── 02
    └── 02.jpg
11

that's useful for some use case, for sure.

but what i am wanting to do is basically an 'rclone sync' with no delete in destination.
like a one-way sync.
some tools call it "replication - update target".
new things in source go to destination.
that's it.
no pruning of destination to match source.

12

rclone copy, does not delete files in the dest.
https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_copy/#synopsis
"Doesn't delete files from the destination."

if each source is a subdir of the same root dir, then use --include or --include-from.

if not, then for each source, you need a corresponding rclone copy command.

13

maybe i should just ask:

what is the single command that will recreate under a local folder, my google photos account, with each album being a separate folder?

and as i successively add and delete albums, this same command will ONLY copy the new albums and NOT delete (from the destination) the folders of the deleted albums (from the source)?

one command - that can easily ACCUMULATE / AGGREGATE from the source to the destination?

sorry this is so hard to communicate.

14

either i do not understand what you want or you do not understand my replies.

perhaps i should stop posting and give some else a chance to help you.

i think your very first command should do what you need.

why not run a few commands and do some simple testing?

15

i'm worn down - sorry.
i did test some command and none of them accomplished what i am specifying.
so could you please reply with the single command that accomplishes what i specified in my previous post, repeated here:

what is the single command that will recreate under a local folder, my google photos account, with each album being a separate folder?

and as i successively add and delete albums, this same command will ONLY copy the new albums and NOT delete (from the destination) the folders of the deleted albums (from the source)? one command - that can easily ACCUMULATE / AGGREGATE from the source to the destination?

i can then test your response and provide some feedback.

i think the bottom line is that i probably want to use the rclone copy command, but i don't want to have to specify all the albums / folders ahead of time - just want them ALL copied (and none deleted).

16

rclone copy googlephotos:album q:\myphotos

17

thank you for cutting through all the noise!

i had done some testing by specifying the source path (to minimize the test time), and that did not create the destination folder (when i assumed it would).
so i was under the mistaken impression that copy did not create folders.

it is in the process of rclone copy remote:album and i see it creating all the folders in the destination.

and a subsequent copy will just copy new, but not delete, of course.

i don't have a 'test' google photo account so wanted to be careful testing with 50GB of files - and the --dry-run didn't specify whether it was creating folders or not.

thanks again for your patience!

18

sure, glad we sovled it...

19

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