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Cleaning up my 200GB iCloud with some JavaScript

andykong.org

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Re: Cleaning up my 200GB iCloud with some JavaScript

#121
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.

I use Image Capture with my phone plugged in to save them on an external hard drive.

Re: Cleaning up my 200GB iCloud with some JavaScript

#123

I kind of hate opaque cloud solutions like this, because their storage usage is inscrutable and their interfaces are basically never optimized to help you clear things out. Whether that’s intentional and malicious or just not a priority, I don’t really care, I just want to be in control of the stuff I’m using. I have a very similar issue with iMessage in iCloud, and unlike photos, there’s no web interface. You have t…

> no web interface

Same with HomeKit Secure Video (HKSV). The only way to access recordings is through the Home app. I'm surprised nobody has figured out a way to browse them outside of the app.

Re: Cleaning up my 200GB iCloud with some JavaScript

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the Photos app on MacOS if you have one? I keep a local copy of my iCloud Photo Library and sync it through the MacOS Photos app.

Photos app for offline storage is also woefully neglected by Apple. They don't really design it for use with an external drive (you are expected to locate your library on a internal storage or permanently attached storage). The reason is that the photo library constantly gets corrupted on external drives, forcing a long rebuild/repair process. Often the photos app doesn't even detect the iphone even when plugged in,…

Everything Apple does seems to be designed to drive hardware sales. Why support external drives, when you can be up-sold for larger internal storage (at a huge markup)? The "Photo Library" could simply be a database file with references to photo locations, alas that might confuse Mac/iOS user with "files" vs "photos".

Re: Cleaning up my 200GB iCloud with some JavaScript

#125
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.

This is not for incremental backups but for all data tied to your Apple ID — Apple provides a data download option to get your contacts, photos, videos and a whole lot of other data. You can visit this KB [1] for details and instructions. There are some exclusions, like data that’s end-to-end encrypted.

[1]: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102208

Re: Cleaning up my 200GB iCloud with some JavaScript

#126
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…

As someone who has a Proxmox cluster at home (storage on RAIDZ, hot backups with PBS, cold backups on external HDDs) I literally recommend cloud storage for most people that ask me about backup solutions as it's simply not worth it for the average user. Those people already have all their data in the cloud anyways and share it on Facebook et al and they don't really care about the privacy side. Remember it's not just…

Another danger of doing it yourself I have found is that if you give a dev a Proxmox, they are going to play around making toy Kubernetes setups instead of implementing the backup system they intended to make.

Re: Cleaning up my 200GB iCloud with some JavaScript

#127

That's one of the reasons I self-host. I just don't trust the cloud providers regarding clarity and transparency... even if my self-hosted solution was far less reliable, less secure and less performant (I imagine it's not ;), I probably wouldn't change. I personally use immich[1], a very complete solution with iOS / Android App, Server-Component and Sync / Backup option. [1]: https://immich.app/

I think Apple just hasn't realized yet what a great sales opportunity a UI for quota management is. There's no better place to sell more storage. That's what Google does. See https://one.google.com/storage and https://photos.google.com/quotamanagement which work well for finding stuff to delete, in the hopes that eventually you'll tire of deleting things and go ahead and buy more storage.

Re: Cleaning up my 200GB iCloud with some JavaScript

#129
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…

> Three Franklins and three Jacksons per year + whatever for an external drive for your offsite backups.

I know you're just following the theme set by the parent commenter, but there are a bunch of us folk on HN who aren't US residents, and have no idea how much those presidents mean in terms of currency.

Re: Cleaning up my 200GB iCloud with some JavaScript

#130
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…

As someone who has a Proxmox cluster at home (storage on RAIDZ, hot backups with PBS, cold backups on external HDDs) I literally recommend cloud storage for most people that ask me about backup solutions as it's simply not worth it for the average user. Those people already have all their data in the cloud anyways and share it on Facebook et al and they don't really care about the privacy side. Remember it's not just…

Yeah I have always backed up to external drives and had cloud storage. But now I learn there isn’t rot, so I have to either build a RAID and have refresh software that rewrites and validates, or just buys a new drive every 3 years and backup all over again. And that’s a simple setup.
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