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Self hosted solution for phone photo backup (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
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Hi,

I’m trying to find a way to have my iPhone’s photos be automatically (or even manually) backed up/synced with my home server.

I heard about photo prism here and got it up and running, however I could not find a free app that lets you sync. Photo sync is their main recommendation and it puts high quality photo backup behind premium.

Is there any solution that lets you backup your photos through home wifi?

Thanks in advance.

Edit: thanks to the suggestions, I found this handy chart listing many and comparing them: https://meichthys.github.io/foss_photo_libraries/

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[–] 17 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Nextcloud's instant upload feature?
Whenever I take a picture or screenshot it's uploaded there.

Nextcloud might be overkill if that's the only feature you need. I've never used the more involved stuff like chat or document editing, just sync.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Nextcloud has so many bugs when you store a lot of files, and photos on a phone accumulate to a big number. Both their Android app and server doesn't deal with a few years' worth of photos.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    I have years worth of photos backed up from my phone (android) on Nextcloud, it's working pretty well... but it matters how you set up the auto upload and a few other things, and I'mnot claiming it's without issues.

    For example, I set it to move files into Nextcloud's folder after uploading, so they appear as locally synced, and can be deleted to free up space if needed (maybe even automatically, not sure). Also, I set it to also upload existing files, because since they get moved, anything that's still there clearly needs to be uploaded.

    There are a few issues viewing media from the app, sometimes, but I use the Memories app :)

    I've been meaning to try immich, looks pretty good, but I use Nextcloud for much more than just photos, so I'd have to keep both and have them sync somehow, and I'm not sure how to do that.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

    Yea only times I've had issues is if I run out of space allocated to the container that runs it.
    I currently have 16GB of phone uploads and 540G overall, it works fine

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    And you don't have your notification bar on the phone full of upload errors? Nextcloud doesn't open 15 seconds on the computer? Can you get to older photos in under an hour, while Nextcloud slowly loads one thumbnail per second?

    It is really unbeleviable how there are some people for whom Nextcloud just works, and the rest of us.

    I gave up on my personal self-hosted instance a long ago, and at work we use commercially hosted Nextcloud and have to get a new account ~yearly because it slows down like Windows 95 when data accumulates.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    And you don't have your notification bar on the phone full of upload errors?

    I get a bunch of upload errors for photos that I delete or move before nextcloud has a chance to upload them, those are safe to ignore. Not sure which errors you're getting...

    Can you get to older photos in under an hour, while Nextcloud slowly loads one thumbnail per second?

    Forget about the plain nextcloud photos app, use the Memories app (incl. the android app).

    Not as good as immich, from what I understand, but if you already have nextcloud, or need more than just photos, it works well.

    It is really unbeleviable how there are some people for whom Nextcloud just works, and the rest of us.

    It's definitely not perfect, but since I was able to set it up to work well for me, I'm keeping it, at least until I have time to install immich and figure out how to sync the two (and maybe get a more powerful server to use its ML features). I'm currently running it off of a decade old chromebox ...

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    And, to offer something positive too: I like Photoprism, it's very fast, browsing old photos just works with no extra delay, there's search by date, location, tags, even face detection.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    Legit have had none of these issues.
    I do get a notification once in a while if I modify a picture fast enough, like a quick crop and it's still uploading. Like snap pic and edit within the same 5 seconds or so.
    Basically just a: "there are multiple versions of the same file (which is true), which one do you wanna keep".

    Then again mine is running on a pretty beefy server which might hide issues rooted in performance.
    I remember it being hell when I was running it on a RPi.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I had it on a beefy server too. Glad that it works for you, every nextcloud thread on social media has a discussion like ours.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    Yea, it's not the first time I've seen this discussion either.
    I don't wanna seem like I'm not believing you or belittling your experience, I just find it weird that we (we, users, as a whole, not just you and I) have such wildly different experiences with it.

    As is, I have a vastly better experience with my own nextcloud than with corporate's onedrive, with more stuff on mine.

    Wish I knew why it's so inconsistent.
    Even though my nextcloud experience is fine, I know plenty of people with the opposite.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago

    That feature kinda works, but it's incredibly fragile. It has caused so many annoyances for me over the last year or so that I'm finally done with the thing. Just go with immich instead, less headache.

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