Additional Setup for Windows Machines

Python

To install python on Windows.

• Open a command prompt with “Windows-Key CMD <Enter>”

• Type ‘python’

• This will take you to the Microsoft Store and prompt you to install python

• When complete return to the command prompt

• Type ‘pip install gphotos-sync’

You can now run using the following but replacing <USER> with your username and <VERSION> with the python version installed (look in the Packages folder to find the full VERSION):

C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Local\Packages\PythonSoftwareFoundation.Python.<VERSION>\LocalCache\local-packages\Python310\Scripts\gphotos-sync.exe

As an alternative to typing the full path you can add the Scripts folder to your path. See https://www.architectryan.com/2018/03/17/add-to-the-path-on-windows-10/.

Symlinks

Album information is created as a set of folders with symbolic links into the photos folder. Windows supports symbolic links but it is turned off by default. You can either turn it on for your account or you can use the operation --skip-albums.

To enable symbolic links permission for the account that gphoto-sync will run under, see Enabling SymLinks on Windows.

Alternative approach

To avoid fiddling with symlinks and python paths you could try WSL2.

This project was developed in Linux, so if you would like to get the native experience I recommend installing WSL2 and Ubuntu. This gives you a linux environment inside of your Windows OS and handles command line installation of python and python applications in a far cleaner way.

The integration if particularly good on Windows 11. See https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install.