Donna Peplinskie (a11n)

Chuck Grimmett

Kim Clow

Fernando Fernandes

Dave Whitley

Automattic Special Projects

oh_hello

Kathryn Presner

Vegard S.

racheleliza

luisasacchetto

<p>Album Importer for Google Photos lets you quickly import images from a public Google Photos album into your WordPress site and show them as a gallery. Add the block to any post or page, paste a Google Photos album URL, and start the import — the images are added to your Media Library and displayed automatically.</p>
<h4>Basic Usage</h4>
<ol>
<li>Create or edit a post/page where you want the gallery.</li>
<li>Add the “Google Photos Album” block.</li>
<li>From Google Photos, share your album and copy the public link.</li>
<li>Paste the album URL into the block.</li>
<li>Click Start Import.</li>
<li>Wait for completion — the gallery is created automatically.</li>
</ol>
<h4>Album URL Format</h4>
<p>Use a publicly shared Google Photos album URL, for example:</p>
<pre><code>https://photos.app.goo.gl/XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
</code></pre>
<h3>External services</h3>
<p>This plugin relies on Google Photos (a third-party service operated by Google LLC) to read and import publicly shared album content. No data is sent to any external service unless an authorized user explicitly provides a Google Photos album URL to the plugin. There are two entry points that trigger requests to Google:</p>
<ol>
<li>The “Album Importer for Google Photos” block in the post/page editor — pasting an album URL and clicking “Start Import”.</li>
<li>The “Import from Google Photos” button that the plugin adds to the media-selection modal of core Image, Gallery, Cover, and Media & Text blocks — pasting an album URL into the modal and clicking “Load album”.</li>
</ol>
<h4>Google Photos</h4>
<p>What it is and what it is used for: Google Photos is Google’s photo hosting and sharing service. The plugin uses it to fetch the contents of a publicly shared album so the images can be saved into the WordPress media library and rendered as a gallery.</p>
<p>What data is sent and when:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Verify the album (server -> Google).</strong> When an authorized editor pastes an album URL and triggers verification (clicking “Start Import” in the block, or “Load album” in the media-library modal), the plugin makes a server-side HTTP GET request to the album URL on <code>photos.google.com</code> or <code>photos.app.goo.gl</code> to retrieve the album’s public HTML page and parse the list of image URLs.</li>
<li><strong>Render thumbnail previews (browser -> Google).</strong> After verification returns the list of images, the plugin renders thumbnails directly in the editor by setting each image URL as the <code>src</code> of an <code><img></code> tag. This causes the editor user’s browser to make HTTP GET requests to <code>lh3.googleusercontent.com</code> for each thumbnail.</li>
<li><strong>Filename inference (server -> Google).</strong> For each image to be imported, the plugin makes a server-side HTTP HEAD request to <code>lh3.googleusercontent.com</code> to read the <code>Content-Disposition</code> header (the import continues even if this request fails).</li>
<li><strong>Image download (server -> Google).</strong> For each image, the plugin issues a server-side HTTP GET request to <code>lh3.googleusercontent.com</code> to download the image bytes and store them as a WordPress media attachment.</li>
<li>No user credentials, account information, or telemetry are collected or transmitted by the plugin. The only data the plugin sends is the album URL the editor pastes (and the derived image URLs from that album).</li>
</ul>
<p>Use of Google’s services is subject to Google’s terms:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://policies.google.com/terms" rel="nofollow ugc">Google Terms of Service</a></li>
<li><a href="https://policies.google.com/privacy" rel="nofollow ugc">Google Privacy Policy</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>Source Code</h3>
<p>The full, unminified source code for this plugin — including the JavaScript and CSS sources used to generate the compiled files in <code>assets/js/build/</code> and <code>blocks/build/</code> — is publicly available on <a href="https://github.com/a8cteam51/importer-google-photos" rel="nofollow ugc">GitHub</a>.</p>
<p>Build tools and instructions:</p>
<ul>
<li>JavaScript and CSS are built with <code>@wordpress/scripts</code> (webpack) via npm.</li>
<li>PHP dependencies are managed with Composer.</li>
<li>To build the plugin from source, clone the repository and run:
<ol>
<li><code>npm ci</code></li>
<li><code>npm run build</code></li>
<li><code>composer install --no-dev --optimize-autoloader</code></li>
</ol>
</li>
<li>A <code>build.sh</code> script in the repository produces a distributable ZIP that mirrors the version published here.</li>
<li>JavaScript and SCSS sources are located in <code>assets/js/src/</code> (e.g. <code>style.scss</code>) and <code>blocks/src/album/</code> (e.g. <code>editor.scss</code>). They are compiled by <code>@wordpress/scripts</code> into the <code>assets/js/build/</code> and <code>blocks/build/</code> directories.</li>
</ul>


Album Importer for Google Photos

Import Google Photos albums into your WordPress media library and display them in a beautiful gallery block.

josheli

<p>A simple, no-frills solution to display a Google Photos album on your site using a widget or a shortcode. There is only one layout option: grid. There is only one required attribute: album url. That’s it, that easy. <a href="https://josheli.com/knob/2017/11/21/simple-google-photos-a-wordpress-plugin/" rel="nofollow ugc">See a demo and read more about the plugin</a>. The code is also <a href="https://github.com/datvance/simple-google-photos-grid" rel="nofollow ugc">available on Github</a>.</p>
<h3>Notes</h3>
<p>Your album on Google Photos must be “public”, which means you need to go into Google Photos on the web and set “Sharing options” to on, i.e. “Anyone with the link can see these photos and the people who’ve been invited or joined.”</p>
<p>Requires curl or similar to fetch the photo urls.</p>
<p>No support is provided. Probably no features will be added. You are free to ask, or to fork. Pull requests accepted.</p>
<h3>Widget</h3>
<p>Go to Appearance -> Widgets and a new widget named Simple Google Photos Grid should be available to use. Drag to your desired widget area and configure.</p>
<ul>
<li>Title: Heading of the widget on your site. Default to empty.</li>
<li>Album URL: The full URL to your public gallery on Google Photos. URL must use one of the following domains: ‘photos.app.goo.gl’ or ‘photos.google.com’. Ideally should be the short, “shared” link (such as https://photos.app.goo.gl/G8EOLs5YtESchh4g1z).</li>
<li>Num Photos to Show: Even numbers probably work best. There’s a maximum number, not sure what it is, but it’s pretty low.</li>
<li>Num Photos per Row: How many photos to show per row? Probably some number that works well with Num Photos.</li>
<li>Cache Interval (in minutes): How long to cache photo URLs before checking the album on Google again. 0 for no cache.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Shortcode</h3>
<p>Place the shortcode in a post, page or theme.<br />
    [simple_google_photos_grid album-url=”https://photos.app.goo.gl/G8EOLs5YtESchh4g1″]</p>
<p>Available attributes are:<br />
– album-url: (required) the url to a public Google Photos album, domain must be one of ‘photos.app.goo.gl’ or ‘photos.google.com’<br />
– number-photos: (optional) number of photos to display, defaults to 4<br />
– number-photos-per-row: (optional) number of photos per row, defaults to 2<br />
– cache-interval: (optional) length, in minutes, to cache the photo urls retrieved from Google, defaults to 15</p>
<pre><code>[simple_google_photos_grid album-url="https://photos.app.goo.gl/G8EOLs5YtESchh4g1" number-photos="6" number-photos-per-row="3" cache-interval="120"]
</code></pre>


Simple Google Photos Grid


I am not sure why this plugin has not gotten more attention. I have searched for a similar plug that would take third-party images (Google Photos) and create a gallery.  Few offer it and those that do, are quite proud of their plugin ($$$).   Yes, the gallery isn't great and I wish it would open the images in a lightbox, but I am extremely please with the plugin. My server is getting approching capacity and this plugin keeps a gazillion photos off of it. Thanks for the plugin. I sure wish you'd consider updating it!






Not perfect, but it does the job ... free also!

Provides a widget and shortcode to display photos from a public Google Photos album in a simple grid.

Album Importer for Google Photos vs Simple Google Photos Grid