In 2018, Google, Facebook / Meta, Microsoft, and Twitter teamed up to announce the Data Transfer Project, which worked on tools to help users “transfer data directly from one service to another, without needing to download and re-upload it.” Since then, Apple has signed on, while other integrated services include Google Photos, Mastodon, and SmugMug, in addition to the various data export and transfer tools available from the original four companies.
This week, Google provided an update on its participation, pledging $3 million in funding and “hundreds” of hours of work from engineers over the next five years to work on the open-source libraries that keep the project going.
The Data Transfer Project plays a part in tools that you can use to export or transfer data from your Google account, like Takeout, Facebook’s link that can ship images directly to Google Photos, and a similar one for Apple that can move images from iCloud to Google Photos.
Google says in its post that, on average, there are “8.2 million exports per month with Google Takeout” and says it will continue to improve the tool with new features and support for transfers to more services.
Whether you’re a developer or simply a person who uses any major internet services and has data you’d like to transfer, you can find out more about the project right here.
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