Since I do not trust any cloud service with the master/only copy of my data (and I do not trust my phone -- the origin of my photos -- as a permanent storage device), I developed a tool called Timeliner which downloads all your content from Google Photos and other online services to your own computer: https://github.com/mholt/timeliner
I run this on a cronjob and it adds all my photos to a timeline in conjunction with my tweets and Facebook posts. It's got a few rough edges but should (mostly) work as advertised.
I would love to have help maintaining it, especially now given this announcement (because Timeliner does not require Google Drive).
One major limitation with the Google Photos API is that it's impossible to get the location data from the photos through it. Timeliner tries to compensate for this by allowing you to import your Google Location History, but this is not ideal either. Edited to add (since there are a lot of the same question in the replies): no, the EXIF metadata does not contain the location because Google Photos API strips it out (it leaves most other metadata intact).
I run this on a cronjob and it adds all my photos to a timeline in conjunction with my tweets and Facebook posts. It's got a few rough edges but should (mostly) work as advertised.
I would love to have help maintaining it, especially now given this announcement (because Timeliner does not require Google Drive).
One major limitation with the Google Photos API is that it's impossible to get the location data from the photos through it. Timeliner tries to compensate for this by allowing you to import your Google Location History, but this is not ideal either. Edited to add (since there are a lot of the same question in the replies): no, the EXIF metadata does not contain the location because Google Photos API strips it out (it leaves most other metadata intact).