Alternative to Google Photos

So I’m looking to disconnect myself from Google and their tracking (as much as possible) and I was thinking about installing GrapheneOS on my Pixel phone. I mostly use my phone for Lemmy, Signal, NewPipe and taking photos. The last one is my biggest bother at the moment. The Google Photos environment is so convenient - I take a photo, it uploads it to my Google Photos collection, and after a while, it deletes it from my phone to clear space, keeping only the cloud backup. Is there a functionality like this disconnected from Google that I would be able to implement on my GrapheneOS phone? I’m looking to invest in the Proton environment (mainly Mail and Drive) so I could use that for storage. Cheers

Showroom7561,

I replaced Google Photos with a Synology NAS + Synology Moments (app). It handles the backup from my phone, organizes the images, has facial recognition, object recognition, etc. Object recognition was REMOVED from the newer Photos app, but Synology is apparently bringing that feature back this year.

You can clear up backed up photos from your phone through the Moments app (not sure about the other Photo apps from Synology), but you’ll still want to have an actual backup solution for what’s on your NAS.

CoachDom,
@CoachDom@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Do you have an easy access to your Synology Moments library from outside of your home network?

Showroom7561,

Yes, I’ve got it set up for both internal and external access.

MasterBuilder,

If you’re paranoid about hackers like I am, you can set up a cert based VPN, lock down all ports, and use the VPN client to access your NAS from anywhere.

Bonus if you have fiber, as upload to internet from home is as fast as download. That means fast download from your NAS.

CoachDom,
@CoachDom@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

How much did you pay for your Synology setup? What is it? Do you have an offline backup?

Showroom7561,

I’ve got the DS920+, and don’t recall how much I paid for it as it was a few years ago. I’ve since upgraded the HDDs as my needs grow, and it’s as easy as either adding a new one to an empty bay.

I have several forms of backups, including a daily HDD connected to the NAS via USB, a monthly off site backup that’s kept outside of my home, and cloud backups.

any1th3r3,

Cheers for that. I’ve cut the cord from Google Photos without a solid replacement and it’s been… pretty miserable tbh.
I’ll look into setting up a Synology NAS, as it seems to be a relatively inexpensive solution moving forward (Proton is nowhere near what I’m looking for feature-wise and other self-hosted foss solutions aren’t really there yet afaict).

Penguincoder,

I’ve been using Immich. Very useful and easy for non techies to use. I know it says beta software, and it is; but it is more reliable than Lemmy…

CoachDom,
@CoachDom@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

What’s your hardware setup for this?

Penguincoder,

VM on a Proxmox host, running Rocky Linux. 4G Ram, 2CPU, sshfs to NAS for picture storage.

fuzzzerd,

Sshfs to Nas? Does that mean you have a persistent ssh session open from your host and are using it as a file system to a self hosted Nas at your home? Or did I misunderstand that?

Penguincoder,

Using SSHFS ; so yeah basically a long running SSH session. You can use other methods that your NAS and OS host support if you feel like it though. The NAS is located on the same network as immich is. NAS has 10TB storage, the vm only has 25GB, enough for the system install and running updates.

DeltaTangoLima,
@DeltaTangoLima@reddrefuge.com avatar

Are you using it with multiple users/devices syncing? I’m looking to get out of Photoprism, and Immich caught my eye a little while back.

TheOrionArm,

Nextcloud is good. I actually have an instance on my server if you need one. A+ rating on server security test lol

Lemmchen,

Immich - GitHub

DogMuffins,

Checkout the “awesome self hosted” list at github.

SubArcticTundra,
@SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml avatar

Since we’re discussing alternatives to Google, does anyone know of a self-hosted alternative to Google’s location sharing? (For family members etc?)

idealium,

I’m keeping my eyes on Locus: github.com/Myzel394/locus

CoachDom,
@CoachDom@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

f-droid.org/en/…/ca.cmetcalfe.locationshare/

Seems to be working all right - give it a shot!

EDIT: Apologies, missed the self hosted bit.

EDIT2: Found this: fossdroid.com/a/hauk.html

SubArcticTundra,
@SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml avatar

Oh nice thanks!

DeltaTangoLima,
@DeltaTangoLima@reddrefuge.com avatar

I use Syncthing to get the photos and videos off our phones, and Photoprism as the photo library.

But I’m looking to see if there’s a decent replacement for the latter, as the promised multi-user support that was eventually delivered was made a paid feature, without any acknowledgement for those of us that were paid up Github supporters up to that point.

Xero,
@Xero@infosec.pub avatar

This was exactly what I thought about doing, glad to know it works.

medicake, (edited )

Yeah I looked at photo prism and felt odd at how many features I’d consider core were gated behind the paywall.

sup,

Immich! I’ve been using it for a while and it’s amazing

GlassHalfHopeful,
@GlassHalfHopeful@beehaw.org avatar

I’m using Synology photos. Auto backup for everyone’s phones. Shared common library we move things into for all our photos. I miss some of the ai search capability of Google, but never enough to do anything but self host.

CCatMan,

Does this mean the Synology is exposed to the public internet?

GlassHalfHopeful,
@GlassHalfHopeful@beehaw.org avatar

If you wish. You can set it up to only sync locally (intranet only) or you may expose it via DNS and port forwarding.

CCatMan,

I would need to think about this. There are times I need to look at photos from weeks ago, but not too often…

Moving over to the Synology would make it a LOT easier to switch OSs on my phone and not install any Google services. 🤔 Let me think more about this.

GlassHalfHopeful,
@GlassHalfHopeful@beehaw.org avatar

This of course presumes that you have a Synology disk station. They come in a variety of different models.

I’m surprised at how much I’m able to serve from my device. I use it for cloud storage, file thinking across devices, photo management and backup across devices, ebook management, running a game server for my family, running an evernote-like service, etc etc.

It’s been really good to have full control over all my information and not have to pay ever increasing fees to various companies for various services.

CCatMan,

I’m thinking of the DS423 for media, photos, and notes. No transcoding.

GlassHalfHopeful,
@GlassHalfHopeful@beehaw.org avatar

I’ve got the same hw in mine. Although I did buy and install ram to max it out. It’s not the most powerful machine out there, but it’s plenty enough for us.

CCatMan,

Agreed, I want to have 8GB of RAM for sure. Thanks for the input. Now time to save up.

GlassHalfHopeful,
@GlassHalfHopeful@beehaw.org avatar

Good luck!

pkulak,

Mine is only on my local network, but I am usually VPNed in anyway.

sibloure,

Another vote for syncthing. It just magically works in the background and is very reliable. I take a photo on my phone and within seconds it’s on my Photos library on my computer. (gThumb and/or Shotwell for Linux work well. )

averyminya,

I’m sorry for my rec since I’m not sure if it fits your needs or spec, but I use SyncThing which seems to support everything?

I’m also not sure since I don’t use it, but you could theoretically get a tasker or automator setup to force SyncThing on Wi-Fi to your backup server and another/same one to delete them monthly/based on storage space?

It’s not an all in one, as I don’t believe SyncThing does transfers but makes copies? Unsure, this seems like it may be an option for you!

Bonus: if you have any kind of music collection that you like digitally, it makes it very easy to have an automated library :)

sequential,

It can definitely work! I use syncthing for my notes, music, photos, config files, and more, it’s a lifesaver. I make sure all of my files make it to my desktop and keep it backed up.

JohnDumpling,

crypt.ee is a great alternative, which is extremely well designed. Included in the subscribtion is an online document editor for personal notes and documents. Everything fully encrypted of course & works across all platforms.

JurassicPork,

This was one of my last de-googling projects, I currently self hosting photoprism, I have syncthing that syncs my photos to a network attached storage…at 3am it copies those pictures to a permanent location (I do 3am because during the day if you want to delete any photos etc. Before it syncs with photoprism… At 4am my nas backs up to another nas (they are just a few portable HD for redundancy) photoprism works great for me, not as powerful as say Google photos, but close 2nd for me… And for accessing the photos when not at home, have setup wireguard VPN for away from home access… I see you want automatic deletion of the photos on your phone, I’d say you be able to run a CRON job that maybe every day (if you have made sure that your pictures are for sure being backed up in the middle of the night, that would automatically delete your dcim pictures folder… I also run graphene, I’ll give it a try and let you know if it works

P.s. my NAS drives are connected to a raspberry pi

chahk, (edited )

I tried to get Photoprism running on my unRAID server a while ago, but the setup was quite involved and I messed up a couple of steps. Ended up dusting off my old Synology DS412+ and running Moments on it. It’s slow as hell (running on a 12 year old Atom processor and 4GB RAM) but it got me off of Google Photos.

Kk,
Kk avatar

Ente.io is also an option

Bishma,

it deletes it from my phone to clear space, keeping only the cloud backup

One copy of of anything isn’t a backup, it’s a move. Yes, in this case, Google is doing its own backups but you’re giving them all the trust and control.

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