On August 10, Google turned off Google Photos backup in Google Drive for desktop, and there's no desktop Google Photos app to replace it. That was how my JPGs got from my Nikon Z 8's cards into Google Photos, and without it the rest of my routine (copying cards to the Mac and a backup drive by hand) was cumbersome. So I built Photo Offloader. You insert a card, and it: copies everything to the Mac and checks each copy with SHA-256, reread from the disk rather than memory mirrors the archive to a USB drive if it's plugged in uploads JPGs and videos to a Google Photos album through rclone, keeping RAW files local, in their own folder never writes to or deletes from the card, and never overwrites a file There's a local dashboard and a menu-bar icon showing progress, past imports, and what went wrong if a card can't be read fully, including "don't format this card yet." Honest status: I use it for real, but I'm the only user so far: macOS 26, a Nikon Z 8 with SD and CFexpress cards, one USB drive. Other cameras haven't been tried. Setting up Google Photos takes some effort (your own Google Cloud sign-in for rclone). It's optional, but it's part of the reason I built this, and once everything is set up, I don't have to think about it anymore. It doesn't rely on a Google desktop app, and if Google ever breaks the upload, the Mac and USB copies keep working. How it was built: I had a very simple Python script, but found it was buggy and my attempts at data safety were lacking careful consideration. So I rebuilt it with Claude Code. I am an SDET at work, so I know the importance of testing and data integrity. There are about 1,100 tests running in CI, and I review every change and try it on real cards, including my USB backup drive and Google Photos collection. Screenshot of the dashboard: https://github.com/devturner/photo_offloader/blob/main/docs/images/dashboard.png It's free and open source (MIT): https://github.com/devturner/photo_offloader Website and docs: https://devturner.github.io/photo_offloader/ I'd love feedback, especially from anyone with another camera brand, or opinions on the dashboard.   submitted by   /u/cturnr [link]   [comments]