GUI AlternativemacOS & Windows
GooglePhotosTakeoutHelper does a real job and does it for free. But somewhere between installing ExifTool, working out which of the two active forks to trust, and typing a command that moves the only copy of your family photos, a lot of people close the terminal. FolioSort does the same repair — real capture dates, GPS back in EXIF, clean dated folders — in a window that shows you the result first.
GooglePhotosTakeoutHelper is free, open source, actively developed, and it solved this problem years before anyone sold software for it. This page is not an argument that it is bad. It is a straight answer to which of the two you should use.
You are comfortable at a command line. You need this to run on Linux or directly on a Synology NAS. You want it inside a script or an automated pipeline. You want it free with no file limit, and you would rather read a README than pay anyone. All four are perfectly good reasons.
You want to see the folder tree before it is created, not after. You would rather not install a second tool to make the first one write metadata. You want the originals left alone while a clean copy is built beside them. And you want an undo button, because this is the only copy of 2014.
Both fix Takeout. They differ in what running them costs you.
| GooglePhotosTakeoutHelper | FolioSort | |
|---|---|---|
| Interface | Command-line executable, interactive prompts or flags | Native app window with a live preview of the resulting folder tree |
Reads Takeout .json sidecars |
||
| Restores real capture dates | ||
| Second tool required to write EXIF | ExifTool, installed separately | None — built in |
| Preview before anything is written | Full folder tree, before you commit | |
| Copy mode (originals left intact) | Moves files by default | Copy or Move, your choice |
| Undo | Re-extract the Takeout export and start again | Last 50 operations, persistent |
| Checksum-verified transfer | XXHash64 & SHA-256 | |
| Duplicate handling across album folders | Filename and size based | Content hash, catches edited copies |
| GPS → city and country folder names | Reverse geocoded | |
| Linux & Synology | Yes — a real advantage | macOS and Windows only |
| Scriptable in a pipeline | Yes — a real advantage | Saved Workflows and watch folders, not a CLI |
| Useful after the migration | One-shot tool for Takeout | Ongoing SD-card imports, duplicates, renames |
| Price | Free, open source, no limit | Free tier (100 files per run) + €19.99 Pro, one time |
Same starting point — a folder of extracted Takeout zips. Same finish — a properly dated library. Different amount of your attention required.
Open FolioSort, pick Google Photos in the sidebar, choose your extracted Takeout folder and press Scan. It reports how many files it matched to a .json sidecar and how many are orphans, before touching anything.
Pick a template — {YYYY}/{MM} {Month}/, or add camera or city — and the preview panel fills with the exact folder structure and filenames you are about to get. This is the step a CLI cannot give you, and the reason most people stop worrying.
Choose Copy to leave the Takeout folder untouched, then Process. Dates and GPS are written into each file, duplicates are resolved by content hash, every transfer is checksum-verified, and the whole operation stays in the undo history.
Whichever tool you use, do the repair before importing anywhere. Immich, Photos, Lightroom and Synology all read the EXIF date at import — fix it once at the file level and every destination gets it right, forever. See exactly which fields get repaired, or read the full Takeout to Mac walkthrough.
For the core job, yes — both read the .json sidecars, write real dates and GPS into EXIF, and reorganize the export into dated folders. Not a replacement if you need Linux or Synology, or want to script the step inside a pipeline. GooglePhotosTakeoutHelper is the better tool for both.
No. FolioSort reads and writes metadata itself — no second dependency, no PATH to configure. GooglePhotosTakeoutHelper relies on ExifTool being installed separately to write EXIF beyond JPEG.
Only if you choose to. Copy mode leaves your extracted Takeout folder untouched and builds the organized library elsewhere; Move mode exists if you would rather not spend twice the disk. Transfers are checksum-verified and the last 50 operations are undoable.
That question is itself a reason people look for an alternative. The original was rewritten from Python to Dart, and a community fork called Neo is developed alongside it. Both are legitimate and free; which handles your export best depends on when Google generated it.
Free to download, 100 files per operation on the free tier — enough to run a real Takeout folder through and verify the dates came out right before paying. Pro removes the limit for €19.99 once. GooglePhotosTakeoutHelper is free with no limit, which is a genuine advantage.
Takeout repeats the same photo in every album folder it belonged to. FolioSort matches by content hash rather than filename, so resized and edited copies are caught too, and resolves them before the library is written.
No. FolioSort is a native macOS and Windows application. If you need the repair to happen on Linux or directly on a Synology NAS, GooglePhotosTakeoutHelper is the right tool and you should use it. FolioSort can write its finished library to a NAS over SMB or AFP, but the processing happens on your Mac or PC.
Free to download, no account. Point it at a Takeout folder and check the preview before a single file moves.