How to Download multiple pictures from Google Photos on Android

Google Photos, a very popular and amazing service from Google allows users to backup and store their photos and videos in the cloud by offering unlimited free storage. The Photos app automatically backups your photos, smartly organizes them into albums, intelligently creates memories in form of short movies, collages, animations, and more from your photos. It also offers advanced editing features and lets users free up space on the phone by letting them delete backed up data which can be accessed online, anytime! We personally love Google Photos and the cross-platform approach it offers but it lacks some really useful and must have option. For instance, Google Photos doesn’t offers the functionality to batch download photos using its app on Android, iPhone, etc. The same is however possible using its web interface on a desktop.

At the moment, Google Photos only allows downloading one photo at a time on mobile devices. This can be cumbersome for people who want to download multiple photos from the cloud and save them locally on their phone for offline viewing or other tasks. Surprisingly, Google Photos app doesn’t offers any such option to download photos in bulk, hence one has to download every photo individually on his/her phone. Users can however download single photos that aren’t stored locally on device, by tapping three dots and selecting ‘Save to device’, an option formerly listed in the menu as Restore and Download.

Well, if you’ve recently moved to a new smartphone and want to download multiple pictures from Google Photos to phone’s gallery then there is a small workaround for it. The trick involves Google Drive app or a third party file manager app like Solid Explorer. You can choose between either of the two, though we’d suggest Google Drive as it’s installed on most Android phones and iPhone too.

Method 1 – Download multiple photos at once from Google Photos using Google Drive

1. Make sure you’ve the latest version of Google Drive app installed on your phone. Open the app.
2. Tap the hamburger menu on top left corner and select “Google Photos”.
3. Now long press on a photo and select the desired photos that you want to save locally.
4. Then tap on the download button. The downloading will begin and you can check that in notifications. (Tip: You can download any photos including those that are already saved in gallery)

The photos are saved in full resolution and in Download folder, accessible from the device gallery. We’ve tried this on Android and the same should work on iPhone as well.

Method 2 – Batch download photos from Google Photos using Solid Explorer app

Those using Solid Explorer or a similar file manager app on Android can use this method instead.

1. Install Solid Explorer from Google Play.
2. Open Google Photos app and simply select multiple photos.
3. Then tap the ‘Share’ menu and select “Save to..” (Solid Explorer) option. In Share as, tap on ‘Actual size’ option.

The downloading will start and you’ll be asked to choose a directory/folder for saving the photo in internal storage. Just select the desired location and the files will be saved which you can view in gallery. The only downside here is that you’ve to select the saving location every time but then you also get to choose a custom directory unlike on Google Drive. (Note: Solid Explorer is a paid app with a 14-day trial and it costs Rs. 20 only in India, which is worth buying in our opinion.)

Hope you found the above guide useful. Do share your views!