One workspace for every ZIP part
The current Windows and macOS releases combine selected Takeout ZIP files into one local workspace. A shared index lets a media file in one archive find supplemental JSON in another part instead of failing because the user happened to process ZIP files separately.
Archive integrity, compressed size, expanded size, media count and sidecar count are checked before the long repair begins. A broken entry is surfaced during preflight rather than after hours of partial output.
Dates, GPS and description recovery
Takeout Rescue restores supported Google capture dates, filesystem timestamps, timezone offsets, coordinates, descriptions and device-source information into portable metadata fields. Existing embedded capture information is inspected rather than overwritten blindly.
Photo and video containers support different fields. The repair engine chooses compatible EXIF, XMP or QuickTime destinations and reports information that cannot be written safely.
Exact duplicates and album relationships
SHA-256 content hashes identify byte-identical exports even when filenames or album folders differ. One physical file is retained while album membership is merged, and album outputs use hard links where the filesystem supports them with safe copies as a fallback.
This is different from deleting files that merely look similar. Near-duplicates, edits and conflicting files remain separate because visual similarity is not proof that one copy can be discarded.
Live Photos and Motion Photos
Existing Live Photo identifiers are preserved or restored to the video resource when the still image provides reliable evidence. Conflicting identifiers are rejected, and a missing Apple MakerNote identifier is not fabricated from an unrelated template.
Existing Google Motion Photos remain intact. Supported Pixel motion resources can be extracted or rebuilt while the original archive remains unchanged.
Copy, write, read back and report
Metadata is written only to a separate output copy. Each supported write is read back through ExifTool before the item is reported as verified. Interrupted work resumes from a checkpoint rather than restarting the entire library.
JSON and CSV reports stay beside the repaired library and map source paths to output paths, matching decisions, duplicate relationships, verification results and isolated failures.