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Self-hosted photo and video backups directly from your mobile phone

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Re: Self-hosted photo and video backups directly from your mobile phone

#71

Post by gcr »

behnamoh wrote: post #55
yaky wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK you can use SyncThing-like utilities, like Möbius Sync, on iOS, but not for photos, because… iOS does not consider a photo a file. Which is baffling (probably for some security reason), so I have to stick with a USB cord and ifuse + heif-convert on Linux.

> probably for some security reason While I'm sure this is probably true, the number of features Apple is depriving us from due to alleged "security reasons" is baffling. It's a general excuse among firms that want to keep their monopoly and walled garden (OpenAI does the same).

Apple provides access to photos just fine, using a different API.

Having a separate API for photo access is annoying while developing this use case, but it's appropriate for a couple different reasons: for one, if apps could access the raw files, that could reveal metadata like location. For another, filesystem access wouldn't properly handle cloud-synced photo libraries.

Perhaps photos on iOS are persisted into some sqlite-style database on the device rather than as individual files...

The Dropbox iOS app would be a good example here. It acts as a ReplicatedFileProvider so apps on the device can access your Dropbox files, but it also provides an optional config flow where users can ask for their photos to be backed up. Then, the Dropbox app fetches the photos through PhotoKit and writes the .JPEGs or .HEICs to a folder of your choosing into your Dropbox files.

Re: Self-hosted photo and video backups directly from your mobile phone

#72

Post by senectus1 »

robertwt7 wrote: post #49

I'm using Synology Photos, have no complaints. Its really a good starter when decoupling from google photos, removing all subscription and taking control of my own data with expandable raid storage

dammit I really need to turn this on my fam devices.

I've spent too much time setting up fun docker instances on it instead

Re: Self-hosted photo and video backups directly from your mobile phone

#73

Post by jasonjayr »

Saris wrote: post #65
adr1an wrote: post #35

I prefer SyncThing on both mobile and desktop devices. It's open source and mature, the server only makes devices findable between each other. It allows 1 or 2 way sync. And it has advanced settings for keeping removed files (e.g. trashbin that cleans anything older than X days.)

How do you manage one way sync? IE; deleting photos on your phone without affecting the other side?

You can set the folder on the PC side to be 'receive only'.

Re: Self-hosted photo and video backups directly from your mobile phone

#74

Post by Medh_Suk »

adr1an wrote: post #35

I prefer SyncThing on both mobile and desktop devices. It's open source and mature, the server only makes devices findable between each other. It allows 1 or 2 way sync. And it has advanced settings for keeping removed files (e.g. trashbin that cleans anything older than X days.)

I wonder if these services will ever reach mass adoption.

I consider myself to be technological advanced, but other than niche photographer, i wonder if 99.99 % of population would ever go through the effort of setting such a service ?

Re: Self-hosted photo and video backups directly from your mobile phone

#75

Post by bombela »

jasonjayr wrote: post #73
Saris wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you manage one way sync? IE; deleting photos on your phone without affecting the other side?

You can set the folder on the PC side to be 'receive only'.

And to avoid mishaps, you can also set the phone side to be send only.

Do remember that as you delete photos on your phone to save space, it will delete them on the PC. You would need the PC side to move the photos to a different directory (a cronjob would do).

Re: Self-hosted photo and video backups directly from your mobile phone

#76

Post by scarface_74 »

barbazoo wrote: post #46
adr1an wrote: post #35

I prefer SyncThing on both mobile and desktop devices. It's open source and mature, the server only makes devices findable between each other. It allows 1 or 2 way sync. And it has advanced settings for keeping removed files (e.g. trashbin that cleans anything older than X days.)

Since this is upvoted so much, I wonder what people's complete setup is for something like this to replace, say, Google Photos. So once the photos are on a "server", what do people recommend for albums, sharing, metadata, geotagging, search, etc?

I have absolutely no desire to manage my own backup.

When I take a picture with my phone, it automatically gets backed up to iCloud, Google Photos, OneDrive, and Amazon Photos (free with prime).

When I had a personal computer, photos would sync to my computer and get backed up to BackBlaze also.

Re: Self-hosted photo and video backups directly from your mobile phone

#77

Post by quickthrower2 »

pickingdinner wrote: post #23

Trying to get off dropbox. 1) Anyone try Backblaze for photo backups? Is it worth trying? 2) Why is immich photo and video only? 3) Why docker? I miss the days of just files and scripts on any host.

Does Backblaze charge per device? $350 a year for 5 devices is a tad expensive. That is why I moved to iDrive but the UX is not as nice.

Re: Self-hosted photo and video backups directly from your mobile phone

#78

Post by glauber »

adr1an wrote: post #35

I prefer SyncThing on both mobile and desktop devices. It's open source and mature, the server only makes devices findable between each other. It allows 1 or 2 way sync. And it has advanced settings for keeping removed files (e.g. trashbin that cleans anything older than X days.)

How to backup iCloud photos? I have an iPhone and Windows as desktop.

Re: Self-hosted photo and video backups directly from your mobile phone

#79

Post by post-it »

Medh_Suk wrote: post #74
adr1an wrote: post #35

I prefer SyncThing on both mobile and desktop devices. It's open source and mature, the server only makes devices findable between each other. It allows 1 or 2 way sync. And it has advanced settings for keeping removed files (e.g. trashbin that cleans anything older than X days.)

I wonder if these services will ever reach mass adoption. I consider myself to be technological advanced, but other than niche photographer, i wonder if 99.99 % of population would ever go through the effort of setting such a service ?

I dream of selling a Box that plugs into the wall that backs up all of your photos and videos and maybe acts as an ActivityPub server, and you can add your friends who also have a Box, and your friends' Boxes back up all of your photos and vice versa.

The added benefit of integrating federated social media is that if you want to share a file with your friends, there's zero load time because the file is already backed up on their Box, or it's striped across multiple Boxes and downloads quickly.

It would have to be dirt cheap though, like a Chromecast.

Re: Self-hosted photo and video backups directly from your mobile phone

#80

Post by usbakimbo »

barbazoo wrote: post #46
adr1an wrote: post #35

I prefer SyncThing on both mobile and desktop devices. It's open source and mature, the server only makes devices findable between each other. It allows 1 or 2 way sync. And it has advanced settings for keeping removed files (e.g. trashbin that cleans anything older than X days.)

Since this is upvoted so much, I wonder what people's complete setup is for something like this to replace, say, Google Photos. So once the photos are on a "server", what do people recommend for albums, sharing, metadata, geotagging, search, etc?

Personally I keep the last 365 days in my Google Photos

Everything else is in Immich

Pictures and videos I take get backed up to Google Photos

Once a year I do a Google Takeout and import into Immich

This way I get the best of both worlds

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