Photo API

Google Workspace Developers Q&A
1

Is there any progress on reintroducing a feature similar to the photoslibrary API? Our enterprise use case involves pulling the entire user library with minimal end-user intervention.

5 Likes
2

Nope, zero progress. The Photos team very simply doesn’t care. At all. See https://www.googlecloudcommunity.com/gc/Workspace-Q-A/Google-Photos-quota-and-having-it-both-ways/m-p/469738, which I wrote nearly 3 years ago and is still unaddressed.

The only viable solution is to not allow users to use Photos with Workspace accounts, and to find a different solution.

3 Likes
3

I am trying to access google library from a python script.
It is in test mode, and I added a confidential scope: https://www.googleapis.com/auth/photoslibrary.readonly
In the credentials I get this scope, so, I should be able to get the information of my google photos.
But, when I try a GET on https://photoslibrary.googleapis.com/v1/mediaItems I receive:

{
  "error": {
    "code": 403,
    "message": "Request had insufficient authentication scopes.",
    "status": "PERMISSION_DENIED"
  }
}

I don’t want to publish this app, because it is only to access my google photos library and get some metadatas…

Am I doing something wrong?

4

The API call https://www.googleapis.com/auth/photoslibrary.readonly is removed by Google from March 2025. You can see here: Updates to the Google Photos APIs  |  Google for Developers
Yeah, it’s total crap - you (pay to) upload to cloud your own 100K photos but can’t anymore do things like screensaver or random pick 50 photos for rotating wallpaper.
Presumption “for user security” is total nonsense.

5

Since the update on April 1st, 2025, I have been unable to access my own photos via API. Does anyone know of an alternative method?