I recently went through the same process. Luckily only 6 zip files, and all but one (the one with my emails) were pretty much empty.

What really pissed me off: because i didnt log in with my current device to google yet, after i let google create the takeout it came to me like "ehh i dont know this phone yet, better wait a week to download"
A week later: "ohh seems like we only store takeouts for a week, guess you gotta do it again :("
Rinse, repeat, and after 3 weeks, i could finally get the only thing i cared about anyway: my mails