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Saving money on Google Photos with Immich: Your own personal photo storage

markpitblado.me

81–90 of 137 posts

Re: Saving money on Google Photos with Immich: Your own personal photo storage

#81

I use Immich, but saved me money it has not. Unless you actually go through the "Backing up your photos" step, you _will_ lose your photos, it's just a matter of time. And if you're like most people, that is probably not acceptable. And by the time you do the math for the cost of your backups, you'll find Google Photos pricing is actually pretty good. Still worth it, imo.

I jumped on the lifetime offer I received from rsync.net at some point (one of the few providers I would trust with such an offer!), so I no longer pay for backup as long as I stay below some ridiculously high number...

Re: Saving money on Google Photos with Immich: Your own personal photo storage

#82

Immich seems way too complex for what I need. Redis, Postgres and Docker just to look at your photos? Eugh I just use Shotwell: https://shotwell-project.org/

Shotwell is great, but it's a single-machine photo organizer; I don't think you can really compare it to Immich on level ground.

Re: Saving money on Google Photos with Immich: Your own personal photo storage

#83
post #38

I use Immich, but saved me money it has not. Unless you actually go through the "Backing up your photos" step, you _will_ lose your photos, it's just a matter of time. And if you're like most people, that is probably not acceptable. And by the time you do the math for the cost of your backups, you'll find Google Photos pricing is actually pretty good. Still worth it, imo.

Google takeout is pretty good with exporting photos.

Be aware that for a few 100's Go the google takeout files will contains corrupted data.

You have to make at least 2 takeout to be sure to have all your files in good shape.

The problem is notto download but to verify and be sure nothing else is missing.

Re: Saving money on Google Photos with Immich: Your own personal photo storage

#84
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way I see it, I am committing more time and hassle to setup my homelab now to save time, money, and hassle later when the SaaS alternate's inevitably do something hostile to me as the user. Even before AI coding I did not trust big tech companies to make updates that have my best interests in mind. Many of these examples are weird feature or ux changes - like how spotify treats liked songs as a playlist (requirin…

yes makes sense but don't you think that risk will also extend to OSS? I get there's more freedom and people can always fork but I have experienced several open source projects go to garbage as well and forced me to switch to another service. And yes Google had gotten progressively every year that I have been a paying customer as well so I am not against your point either. All I am saying is sometimes cloud makes sen…

OSS lets you take your time.

For example, paperless-ngx was already an absolute ball of mud, and now there’s a new major version that’s somehow even worse.

I’m just not upgrading. It’s behind a VPN, I control what files it can ingest, so it’s okay if it’s old.

I’m looking at a few alternatives and I’ll switch when they are mature and when I have the time, but there’s essentially no deadline.

Re: Saving money on Google Photos with Immich: Your own personal photo storage

#85
I gave Immich a fair try, but it could not replace Apple Photos for my use case. YMMV, but my favorite Photos app features simply weren't available.

I use Apple's top-notch editing for all sorts of stuff - RAW images, videos, basic enhancements, etc. When I tested, Immich didn't have very good, if any, editing features.

I also love Apple's search functions, and it Just Works™. I'm sure Immich has similar, but I know it would take a lot of processing to make it happen.

I also did not really care for Immich's UI, it felt overly basic and Material Design to me, but that is only personal preference.

Another gap is metadata. In Apple Photos I can tap the little "I" icon to see a lot of capture metadata, and in Immich I did not see an equivalent to how good Apple's one is.

Re: Saving money on Google Photos with Immich: Your own personal photo storage

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People setting up homelab often talk about money saved but never account for the time they have to spend as well not just in setting it up and maintainence. If you value your time, the cost of a google pro subscription is not much. I still run a homelab because I like it and yes its good to be able to run several services for "free" but the commitment is never free. This is also true for businesses. I used to think w…

This is exactly the reason why companies aren't just going to vibe-code their own software. It's more expensive to maintain than it is just to pay for it outright

Depends heavily on the software cost and how far from core competency it is.

If the company already has a developer team and the software is an expensive domain-specific CRUD app for internal use without significant compliance or risk factors - sure, go DIY.

If the company does not employ any devs, or if the core logic of the software is a business secret of the vendor, or it is customer facing, or there are significant compliance / risk factors - you are better off paying for it.

Unless the cost is astronomical, or the company is motivated also by anger at rent-seeking MBA f*ckers at the vendor.

Re: Saving money on Google Photos with Immich: Your own personal photo storage

#87

I use Immich, but saved me money it has not. Unless you actually go through the "Backing up your photos" step, you _will_ lose your photos, it's just a matter of time. And if you're like most people, that is probably not acceptable. And by the time you do the math for the cost of your backups, you'll find Google Photos pricing is actually pretty good. Still worth it, imo.

“You _will_ lose them”, as in, somehow Immich will do something to lose them (like making a mistake in a dedupe process which deletes the wrong things), or are you just saying you also need to keep backups?

Re: Saving money on Google Photos with Immich: Your own personal photo storage

#88
post #48
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any info on your public proxy setup?

Likely https://github.com/alangrainger/immich-public-proxy

I started there and ended up rewriting it in Preact/Go which is the direction I've been heading with the apps I maintain for myself.

Re: Saving money on Google Photos with Immich: Your own personal photo storage

#89
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes but there is still an opportunity cost. As I said I still do it because I like it but I also have a life outside just computers. Any time i spend on my homelab is also time I take away from other things. Also there is learning but a lot of the time is spent on doing menial system admin tasks or helping solve "user problems" (i.e. figure out why my partner's friend cannot access jellyfin anymore). So it does becom…

> yes but there is still an opportunity cost I would call it more of a set of tradeoffs > a lot of the time is spent on doing menial system admin tasks This is the refreshening opportunity for us non-admins, and a learning opportunity to automate as much of it as possible. Other benefits not mentioned include not signing your data or life away to whatever Google's lawyers or marketers have decided is best for them, c…

> I would call it more of a set of tradeoffs

This is mostly wording. It is a commitment, it has an opportunity cost, there are tradeoffs.

> This is the refreshening opportunity for us non-admins, and a learning opportunity to automate as much of it as possible.

So many opportunities but the day is still 24 hours long. You still have to choose your opportunities wisely, and give up something else in the process. And if you look at the big picture those who choose to take this opportunity are not so many compared to those who just pay with data so they don't have to pay with time and effort. Everyone pays money in the end.

Re: Saving money on Google Photos with Immich: Your own personal photo storage

#90

I gave Immich a fair try, but it could not replace Apple Photos for my use case. YMMV, but my favorite Photos app features simply weren't available. I use Apple's top-notch editing for all sorts of stuff - RAW images, videos, basic enhancements, etc. When I tested, Immich didn't have very good, if any, editing features. I also love Apple's search functions, and it Just Works™. I'm sure Immich has similar, but I know…

> I'm sure Immich has similar, but I know it would take a lot of processing to make it happen.

It’s less than you think! Consider that Apple’s image recognition happens on your phone. Also, it doesn’t matter if indexing is slow, as long as the photos are indexed before you need to search for them.

I used to run Immich on a 2nd gen Core i3.

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