My family relies heavily on Google One to sync our Google Photos. We have 4 iOS and 5 Android devices. Originally the iOS folks would pay and sync through iCloud. But to simplify the billing process and easy sharing, we switched all to Google Photos. Lets just say there is almost 2TB of photos/videos.
We want to move away from this to a more controlled (self host) and non Google solution. We looked at Proton, their emails and vpns are great. However we dont want to move to a different cloud for photos and videos.
We are not very tech savy to set things up. Can we just buy a big hard drive and somehow hook it to our wifi? This is consider self hosted right? Does that mean medias will only get synced when we are within the house’s wifi?
Appreciate any inputs
Buy hard drives.
Everyone is suggesting Immich, which is the answer if you want to self-host. But you say you are not very tech savvy, so you might want a service you don’t need to self-host, and in that case take a look at Ente Photos.
You get end to end encrypted photos and don’t need to do anything. They have guides on how to move your photos from Google Photos as well.
Ente can also be self-hosted, so you can compare what you like more.
I’ve used Nextcloud for photo syncing, and that worked well.
Don’t use nextcloud, even as a professional IT admin / software engoneer it was clunky and complicated to setup and maintain.
It’s also slow.
Immich hosting options or OpenCloud are a better bet.
As others have said, Immich is probably the go to DIY self hosted option.
BUT!
Please ensure that if you self host that you have an off site BACKUP. You don’t want to lose ALL of your families photos if the house burns down etc.
I juat moved to immich but i self host it which requires a (small) bit of tech skills. I believe they do offer optuons for them to host for you. Ente is another option. Google takeout is the way to get your photos exported. Once backed up to the service of your choice, cancel google one.
Be aware, youll need to manually delete all tge google photos day by day on the websote to keep using that google account. Took me abkut 2 hours with 1tb.the lock in and efforts tonorevent escape is crazy.
We are not very tech savy to set things up
I think, in such case, you should rather look for a service hosted for you
For example
https://elest.io/open-source/nextcloud
https://www.hetzner.com/storage/storage-share/Can we just buy a big hard drive and somehow hook it to our wifi? This is consider self hosted right? Does that mean medias will only get synced when we are within the house’s wifi?
Yes, it’s called a NAS. Correct. Correct
The thread might get locked here under “no support” rule, self-hosting comms will be a better fit
https://piefed.social/f/selfhostEdit: and if you want to dive into self-hosting, I guess, check out yunohost and LibrePhotos. Immich is also popular one
I think the best idea would be to go with a Synology NAS.
This is an extremely simple solution. They’ll even handle the DNS and security for you.
Synology is kind of the Apple of NAS in all the good and bad ways, but they certainly are dead simple to set up, and also give you a lot of flexibility to expand into a more complex,self maintaini tech stack if you want to.
Synology has started enshittifying their products lately by forcing you to only use their hard drives, etc. I have a DS933+, but I’m only using it for file storage and trying not to lock myself into their apps. It works well, but to avoid lock in your only real option is open source.
You may be out of the loop, but Synology walked that back after the backlash they got. You can use any drive again.
I read that they walked it back but only partially. And the fact they tried it tells me they can’t be trusted with my data.
They also make it very difficult to move your data off their NAS once it’s on there, because everything is proprietary.
Your best option remains open source with commodity hardware. Had I known what I know now in 2023, I would have probably just built a low power PC server with TruNAS.
immich and photoprism looks good to me
I used photoprism for many years, and while its great, immich ended up being much better.
We are not very tech savy to set things up.
Find somebody near you who is. A family member who cannot ghost you would be best.
I migrated my Photos to a more expensive service called Ente. It’s been a mixed bag for me. The backup function works well but both their desktop and mobile apps are causing me trouble. Ask me about the details if you care, I won’t bore you with that chat. But in me this has brought me to plan a switch to something self-hosted when my plan expires. I still have lots of time but I’m definitely bookmarking your post.
A family member who cannot ghost you…
Oh fuck off, I hate that family members thought I was free tech support just because “I work with computers”. Getting questions on weekends and nights, and guilt trips from other family members “why don’t you just help them?”
Ente photos is a great choice if you don’t want to self host.
I remember you can also host ente yourself with just one script that they provide.
Also look at immich and photoprism to see if you can host them.https://www.pikapods.com/apps#photos
Immich is very popular, but there are more options there to check out.
Immich is a Google Photos alternative to manage and share your photos and videos. Comes with its own mobile app, as well as AI and search features.
PikaPods is a managed hosting solution for open source server apps. Their homepage explains a lot, and if you do some web searches, you can see they’ve got a good reputation.
