Google Takeout to Google Drive: Unzip Without Downloading

Takeout's Add to Drive leaves zip files that Drive can't extract, and they use your storage. Unpack them in place or into a second account, with the space math.

Introduction

Choose Add to Drive in Google Takeout and your Google Photos export arrives as zip files. Open one and Drive shows a list of what's inside, with a download button and nothing that extracts it. Many people pick this destination because the export then seems to be in the right place already, and only find out afterwards that the photos are still sealed in archives that use up their Google storage.

Storage is the part to work out first. If the library, the zips and the unpacked folders sit in one Google account, the same photos can count three times against one quota. This guide shows what Drive does with a zip, how much room each setup needs, how to unpack the export in place or into a second account with CloudsLinker's Google Takeout import, and how to do it on a computer instead.

The Short Answer
What Drive Does With a Takeout Zip
The Storage Math Comes First
Method 1: Unpack the Zips in Place With CloudsLinker
Variation: Unpack Into a Second Google Account
Method 2: Extract on a Computer, Upload the Folder
Other Routes You'll See Mentioned
Limits That Can Stop the Copy
Frequently Asked Questions

The Short Answer

Takeout's Add to Drive delivers zip files, not folders, and Google Drive can't extract them. To get browsable folders, have something read the zips remotely or extract them on a computer:

No download, same account or a second one → CloudsLinker reads the zips in place.
No extra service, and a disk with room for twice the export → extract on a computer and upload.
You want the photos back in Google Photos, not Drive → Drive is the wrong target; see copying to a second Google Photos account.

What Drive Does With a Takeout Zip

The delivery is set in Takeout's second step. Transfer to offers Add to Drive, and the page spells out the cost: "These files will count against your storage quota." Google then emails you a link to the files' location (Google Takeout help).

Google Takeout step 2, Choose file type, frequency and destination, with Transfer to set to Add to Drive, the notice that the files will count against your storage quota, the options Export once, every month for 1 year and every 2 months for 1 year, and the .zip file type

To see what happens next, we uploaded a test zip with the same layout as a Takeout export to a Drive account and opened it. Drive shows a read-only list of the archive: one Takeout folder, with Name, Last modified and File size columns. The toolbar has a download button and a comment button.

Google Drive preview of takeout-20261103T101500Z-1-001.zip listing one item, a Takeout folder, with Open with, Share, download and comment controls and no extract button

The right-click menu doesn't help either. It lists Open with, Download, Rename, Make a copy, Share, Organize, File information and Move to trash.

Google Drive right-click menu on a zip file listing Open with, Download, Rename, Make a copy, Share, Organize, File information and Move to trash, with no extract option

A large library is split into many of these files. At 2 GB per part, a 300 GB library is about 150 zips, and a single album can be spread over several of them, so extracting one zip wouldn't give you a complete album anyway.

The Storage Math Comes First

Google's quota is shared across Drive, Gmail and Google Photos. That matters more here than for any other Takeout destination, because the export lands in the same quota as the library it was made from. Assuming an original-quality library of size L, and copying only the year folders:

Stage	One account	Zips in account A, folders in account B
Before the export	L (the library)	A: L
Zips delivered	2 × L	A: 2 × L
Folders unpacked (the peak)	3 × L	A: 2 × L, B: L
Zips deleted	2 × L	A: L, B: L

Copying album folders as well adds more, because album photos are stored twice in the export (see years, albums or both). For scale, every Google account includes 15 GB. Listed plans include Basic with 100 GB at $1.99 a month, 2 TB at $9.99 and 5 TB at $19.99, and prices vary by country (Google One plans). A 300 GB library in one account therefore needs about 900 GB at the peak, so check that figure against your plan before you create the export.

If the export is short of space in its own account, the other routes are to send it to OneDrive, Dropbox or Box and copy from there, or to choose Send download link via email and use a computer.

Method 1: Unpack the Zips in Place With CloudsLinker

CloudsLinker treats the zips in your Drive as a read-only drive. It merges every part's table of contents into one folder tree, so an album split across parts appears as one folder, and writes the photos into a Drive folder from its own servers. The free account's 10 GB of monthly transfer is enough to test a few folders; a whole library needs a paid plan.

Step 1: Send the Export to Drive

At takeout.google.com, click Deselect all, tick Google Photos and click Next step. Set Transfer to to Add to Drive (shown above), keep .zip, choose 2 GB or 10 GB and click Create export. Google may ask for your password again. Exports of large libraries can take hours or days; wait for the email. Then connect that account with Add Cloud → Google Drive, which signs in on Google's own page.

Step 2: Add the Takeout Folder as a Google Takeout

Open Add Cloud, search for takeout and choose Google Takeout. Set Cloud with your export to Google Drive and tick the Takeout folder. A ticked folder brings in every .zip inside it, so you don't select the parts one by one. Click Check archives.

CloudsLinker Add Google Takeout dialog with Cloud with your export set to Google Drive and the Takeout folder ticked, including takeout-20261020T081530Z-001.zip and the parts after it, above the Check archives button

CloudsLinker lists the top-level folders, file count and unpacked size, plus any part it can't read, such as a .tgz or damaged file. Name the Takeout and click Add Takeout. The list of zips is fixed at this point, so wait until every part has arrived.

CloudsLinker Add Google Takeout review step listing year folders and album folders with file counts and sizes, a notice that the archives are fixed once added and can only be copied from, and the Name field

Step 3: Copy the Year Folders to a Drive Folder

Open Transfer. In Source, expand the Takeout and tick the Photos from YYYY folders, which hold every photo once. In Target, expand Google Drive and pick or create a normal folder, here Photos/From Google Photos, rather than the Takeout folder holding the zips. Copy is selected and Move is unavailable, because a Takeout is read-only. Click Create transfer.

CloudsLinker Create transfer task page: the Google Takeout source expanded with the Photos from year folders ticked and album folders unticked, the new folder Photos / From Google Photos selected in Google Drive as the target, Copy checked and Move greyed out

Step 4: Check the Counts and Delete the Zips

The copy runs on CloudsLinker's servers, so you can close the browser. Task monitor shows files and bytes done and the speed, and each file is checked against the CRC-32 checksum stored in its zip.

CloudsLinker Task monitor with a running copy from Google Takeout year folders to Google Drive Photos / From Google Photos at 38 percent, showing files and gigabytes completed and the speed

Treat the status as a prompt to check, not as the result: a task that ends as PartialSuccess may have stopped at a limit. Compare the completed file count with the review step, then run the task again if anything is missing. When the counts match, delete the zips and empty them from Drive's trash, since trashed files still use storage. Remove the Google Takeout from CloudsLinker as well, because it can't read zips that no longer exist.

Variation: Unpack Into a Second Google Account

This is the way around the three-times peak. It also suits a move away from an old address, such as a school account that is closing.

Create the export in the old account with Add to Drive, as in Step 1.
Connect both Google Drive accounts to CloudsLinker. Each signs in on Google's page, so use the account picker to choose the right one, and rename the connections so you can tell them apart.
Add the Google Takeout from the old account's Drive, as in Step 2.
On Transfer, tick the year folders in the Takeout and pick a folder in the new account's Drive, or a Shared drive you can write to, as the target.
Keep the old account until the counts match, because the zips have to stay readable for the whole copy.

Files copied this way are owned by the target account and count against its quota, not the old one's. If you only need Drive files moved between accounts rather than a photo export, use the Drive-to-Drive guide instead.

Method 2: Extract on a Computer, Upload the Folder

This needs no third-party service, only disk space and time. Plan for the zips and the photos on disk at once, about twice the export, and count the transfer twice: down, then up.

Get the parts onto your computer. In Drive, open the Takeout folder from Google's email, select the parts and download them. Selecting many at once makes Drive pack them into further zips, so downloading a few at a time is easier to keep track of.
Extract every part into the same folder. Albums split across parts merge back together this way. Use 7-Zip on Windows or The Unarchiver on macOS for parts over 4 GB.
Upload the folder. In Drive, open the destination folder and choose New → Folder upload, then pick the Google Photos folder or just its Photos from YYYY folders. For large libraries, Drive for desktop is more forgiving of interruptions than a browser tab.
Delete the zips from Drive, empty the trash, and remove the local copies once the counts match.

Google Drive folder From Google Photos with the New menu open, listing New folder, File upload and Folder upload, with Folder upload highlighted

Other Routes You'll See Mentioned

Route	What to expect
Browser-based zip apps under Open with, such as ZIP Extractor	The work happens on your device, not on a server: ZIP Extractor's FAQ says archives are processed in your browser and that up to about 2 GB opens reliably on most computers (ZIP Extractor FAQ). That can work for a few parts, one at a time. Dozens of parts mean dozens of runs.
Making the export smaller	Takeout's All photo albums included button lets you export selected albums, so each export stays small enough to handle by hand.
Leaving the zips as they are	A reasonable cold backup if you only want a safety copy. You can't browse the photos without opening the archives, and the export reflects only the day it was made.

Limits That Can Stop the Copy

Limit	Number	What to do
CloudsLinker free transfer	10 GB a month (plans)	Test with one year folder. A larger export stops when the allowance runs out, so check the plan before starting
Google's daily upload and copy limit	750 GB per user per 24 hours (Google)	A 2 TB library takes at least three days. Run the task again after the limit resets; matching files are skipped
Google storage	15 GB free, shared with Gmail and Photos	Do the math above first, including trashed files
Zips per Google Takeout in CloudsLinker	500	At 2 GB per part that covers about 1 TB; use 10 GB parts for more
Archive format	.zip only	.tgz and password-protected zips are reported as unreadable and left out

Frequently Asked Questions

Not on its own. We uploaded a test zip laid out like a Takeout export: opening it in Drive shows a list with Name, Last modified and File size plus a download button, and the file's right-click menu has Open with, Download, Rename, Make a copy, Share, Organize, File information and Move to trash, with no extract option. Third-party apps can be added under Open with.

Yes. Takeout's own screen says the files will count against your storage quota. Your Google storage is shared by Drive, Gmail and Google Photos, so the zips compete with the library they were exported from. If there isn't enough room, free some space or use a larger plan before you create the export.

In one account with an original-quality library, plan for about three times the library at the peak: the library itself, the zips and the unpacked folders. After you delete the zips it is about twice the library, until you remove the photos from Google Photos. Unpacking into a second account needs only one library's worth of space there.

No. Google stopped syncing Drive and Google Photos in July 2019, so files in a Drive folder stay in Drive. To put an export into Google Photos, copy its folders to a Google Photos connection in CloudsLinker instead, as the guide on copying Google Photos to a second account explains. That route has its own limit of 20,000 items per album.

Yes. Connect the second account's Google Drive as another cloud and choose it as the target. The zips stay in the first account and the folders are written to the second, so only the second account needs room for the photos. A Shared drive you can write to works as a target too.

Check the transfer allowance on your CloudsLinker plan first: a free account includes 10 GB of transfer a month for testing, and a larger export stops when the allowance runs out. Google also documents a limit of 750 GB of uploads and copies per user per 24 hours. Run the task again after either limit resets; files already in the target with the same size are skipped.

2 GB or 10 GB, in .zip format. CloudsLinker doesn't read .tgz files, and each photo is fetched with its own read from inside the zip, so a 50 GB part means many reads against one file, which Google Drive may throttle. One Google Takeout in CloudsLinker can hold up to 500 zips.

No. The files are copied unchanged and CloudsLinker checks each one against the CRC-32 checksum stored in the zip, so capture dates inside the photos (EXIF) stay as they were. The modified date you see in Drive is the export date, and the .supplemental-metadata.json files arrive as ordinary files beside the photos.

Conclusion

Drive stores Takeout zips and lists their contents, but it doesn't extract them. CloudsLinker reads the parts where Takeout left them and copies the year or album folders into a normal Drive folder, in the same account or a second one, without a download. Extracting on a computer needs no other service if your disk can hold the zips and the photos at once. Either way, work out the storage before you start, delete the zips when the file counts match, and remember that files in Drive don't appear in Google Photos.

Related: unzip Google Takeout in the cloud, Google Takeout to OneDrive, Google Takeout to Dropbox, copy Google Photos to a second account and Google Drive connection notes.

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