Cleaning up my 200GB iCloud with some JavaScript • Hacker News Board

Re: Cleaning up my 200GB iCloud with some JavaScript

#111

Post by maherbeg » Fri, Jan 05, 2024, 5:30 PM UTC

cianmm wrote: post #4

Interesting article. I have my own problem, that caused me to have to upgrade my iCloud plan, and thus may not be a high priority fix for Apple. If you shoot RAW+JPEG (not a super-rare thing to do, for photo enthusiasts) then Apple Photos links the two images. Which is useful, rather than having a bunch of kinda-duplicates littering your library you can easily toggle between RAW and JPEG. But this combining, along wi…

ugh yeah, currently in the same boat and haven't taken on the work to deal with this hassle. definitely looking for a solution!

Re: Cleaning up my 200GB iCloud with some JavaScript

#112

Post by nirvdrum » Fri, Jan 05, 2024, 5:34 PM UTC

Dalewyn wrote: post #69

frostix wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Differential backups or any sort of versioning seemed like one of the most obvious culprits (that and or total redundant storage to preserve the file) but the issue with all of this is it’s entirely opaque. Ultimately you’re increasingly tethered to some service for your storage that you pay for periodically based on total storage yet you have little-to-no information how to best optimize that storage if you want to…

>So as a consumer, do I just wave my hands and keep throwing more and more money at the problem, Yes. I can go and buy 1TB of Microsoft OneDrive or 2TB of Google Drive for less than a Franklin a year, and most people won't even need 1TB let alone 2TB. Both Microsoft and Google also offer 100GB plans for a Jackson a year, which is what I purchase myself. The average person can get by paying a Washington per month to A…

> For the downvoters, consider this: If I were to manage all this myself, I would need at least three storage mediums with one being a different form factor to satisfy the 3-2-1 backup scheme. I would also need to procure arrangements for that third backup copy in the 3-2-1 scheme. And I would need to spend time managing it all.

> That is going to cost me more than a Franklin per year. Life is short, my time is precious, and my money is ultimately expendable.

When you're looking at cloud services, you need to perform your own off-site backup. Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc. will maintain copies that they'll restore in the event of a hardware failure. But, if your account gets compromised or a buggy sync or bad API event happens, your data is gone. They're not going to go restore it from tape for you. This is a big part of why I do have an in-home NAS. Maybe you have everything sync'd with a laptop and that has you covered, but Apple's expanded storage options are outlandishly expensive so I doubt many with the 2TB+ plans are able to do that. (Yes, you could use external storage, but that's also rather inconvenient for a Photos.app library.)

We could both get what we want if these storage operations weren't wrapped up in proprietary APIs. If I use iCloud I get a seamless experience on macOS, but no access at all on Linux. If I use Dropbox I get access on Linux, but little more than photo sync on an iPhone. Given the decades of precedent with filesystems and I/O APIs, I suspect we could have an abstraction layer and an implementation layer that would allow for interoperability. Anyone that wants to pay for iCloud are free to do so, others could use their preferred storage engine. But, allowing access into the walled garden is far less profitable.

For most people, storage needs are going to increase over time (more + higher resolution photos & videos, larger apps, document storage, etc.). 6TB for a family is not unreasonable and that's what? Three Franklins and three Jacksons per year + whatever for an external drive for your offsite backups. What comes after the 6TB option? Storage costs have decreased drastically over time, unless you're using a proprietary service; consumers are not benefiting at all from those gains in efficiency.

Re: Cleaning up my 200GB iCloud with some JavaScript

#113

Post by Terretta » Fri, Jan 05, 2024, 5:38 PM UTC

Dalewyn wrote: post #69

frostix wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Differential backups or any sort of versioning seemed like one of the most obvious culprits (that and or total redundant storage to preserve the file) but the issue with all of this is it’s entirely opaque. Ultimately you’re increasingly tethered to some service for your storage that you pay for periodically based on total storage yet you have little-to-no information how to best optimize that storage if you want to…

>So as a consumer, do I just wave my hands and keep throwing more and more money at the problem, Yes. I can go and buy 1TB of Microsoft OneDrive or 2TB of Google Drive for less than a Franklin a year, and most people won't even need 1TB let alone 2TB. Both Microsoft and Google also offer 100GB plans for a Jackson a year, which is what I purchase myself. The average person can get by paying a Washington per month to A…

Presidents on US currency:

  - $100,000: Wilson
  - $1,000: Cleveland
  - $500: McKinley
  - $100: Franklin*
  - $50: Grant
  - $20: Jackson
  - $10: Hamilton*
  - $5: Lincoln
  - $2: Jefferson
  - $1: Washington
  
  * not a president

> I can go and buy 1TB of Microsoft OneDrive or 2TB of Google Drive for less than $100 a year, and most people won't even need 1TB let alone 2TB. Both Microsoft and Google also offer 100GB plans for a $20 a year, which is what I purchase myself. The average person can get by paying $1 per month to Apple for 50GB of iCloud.

While we're at it, iCloud+ offers these monthly storage plans now:

  United States:
  50GB: $1
  200GB: $3
  2TB: $10
  6TB: $30
  12TB: $60

See everywhere in the world here:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201238

Re: Cleaning up my 200GB iCloud with some JavaScript

#114

Post by Terretta » Fri, Jan 05, 2024, 5:43 PM UTC

nirvdrum wrote: post #112

Dalewyn wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So as a consumer, do I just wave my hands and keep throwing more and more money at the problem, Yes. I can go and buy 1TB of Microsoft OneDrive or 2TB of Google Drive for less than a Franklin a year, and most people won't even need 1TB let alone 2TB. Both Microsoft and Google also offer 100GB plans for a Jackson a year, which is what I purchase myself. The average person can get by paying a Washington per month to A…

> For the downvoters, consider this: If I were to manage all this myself, I would need at least three storage mediums with one being a different form factor to satisfy the 3-2-1 backup scheme. I would also need to procure arrangements for that third backup copy in the 3-2-1 scheme. And I would need to spend time managing it all. > That is going to cost me more than a Franklin per year. Life is short, my time is preci…

> What comes after the 6TB option?

Well, 12TB.

And if you are head of household and share storage, you can combine storage plans. Mine currently shows “2.3TB of 14TB used”.

Re: Cleaning up my 200GB iCloud with some JavaScript

#115

Post by SirMaster » Fri, Jan 05, 2024, 5:46 PM UTC

Can't you just use the Apple Shortcuts app to do a lot of this?

Pretty sure that can enumerate and query things like the filesize of the photos and videos in your iCloud.

Re: Cleaning up my 200GB iCloud with some JavaScript

#116

Post by tamimio » Fri, Jan 05, 2024, 5:53 PM UTC

> Videos anonymized by slow internet loading

I chuckled!

I believe the size difference has to do with the encoding, can’t tell for a fact since you didn’t show that part, but maybe it gets re-encoded when you download it hence the difference.

Re: Cleaning up my 200GB iCloud with some JavaScript

#117

Post by baxtr » Fri, Jan 05, 2024, 5:59 PM UTC

Slightly off topic: anyone know how to backup iCloud data (mainly photos and videos, but also notes) to an outside platform?

I’m an Apple fan, but still don’t like the idea of having all my digital life on iCloud only.

Re: Cleaning up my 200GB iCloud with some JavaScript

#118

Post by nobodyandproud » Fri, Jan 05, 2024, 6:01 PM UTC

Dalewyn wrote: post #69

frostix wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Differential backups or any sort of versioning seemed like one of the most obvious culprits (that and or total redundant storage to preserve the file) but the issue with all of this is it’s entirely opaque. Ultimately you’re increasingly tethered to some service for your storage that you pay for periodically based on total storage yet you have little-to-no information how to best optimize that storage if you want to…

>So as a consumer, do I just wave my hands and keep throwing more and more money at the problem, Yes. I can go and buy 1TB of Microsoft OneDrive or 2TB of Google Drive for less than a Franklin a year, and most people won't even need 1TB let alone 2TB. Both Microsoft and Google also offer 100GB plans for a Jackson a year, which is what I purchase myself. The average person can get by paying a Washington per month to A…

Partly you’re getting downvoted because you’re not accounting for the value of the content to the user. Even if the chance of a cloud provider cancelling an account or deleting content is 0.0001%, the value of a single photo to Microsoft will be magnitudes less than to an individual.

I imagine the other reason is because they’re not mutually exclusive: For instance, Synology makes it easy to have both an in-home NAS and cloud sync.

Re: Cleaning up my 200GB iCloud with some JavaScript

#119

Post by acheron » Fri, Jan 05, 2024, 6:06 PM UTC

baxtr wrote: post #117

Slightly off topic: anyone know how to backup iCloud data (mainly photos and videos, but also notes) to an outside platform? I’m an Apple fan, but still don’t like the idea of having all my digital life on iCloud only.

Disclaimer I haven't tried this yet, but I found this project recently that supposedly downloads all iCloud photos (e.g. to a NAS for local backup). https://github.com/icloud-photos-downloader/icloud_photos_do...

Re: Cleaning up my 200GB iCloud with some JavaScript

#120

Post by otterpro » Fri, Jan 05, 2024, 6:08 PM UTC

mmh0000 wrote: post #64

cnicolaou wrote: post #11

Surprisingly, I've received a similar storage notice from Apple before the holidays and I decided to download all photos/videos into my own media server instead of hosting it on iCloud. There is not an easy, straight-forward way to download your archive from iCloud. I am slowly getting there using multiple machines and devices. The issue with the recent changes with Apple is that they increase the prices for no good…

>> There is not an easy, straight-forward way to download your archive from iCloud. Let me revolutionize your life: https://github.com/icloud-photos-downloader/icloud_photos_do...

Thanks! That tool is what I was looking for. I think you saved me hours of frustration.