Since this is upvoted so much, I wonder what people's complete setup is for something like this to replace, say, Google Photos. So once the photos are on a "server", what do people recommend for albums, sharing, metadata, geotagging, search, etc?
I want an easier way to edit the comments on photos (as embedded metadata) that I haven't found yet. Any image browser where I can hit a convenient hotkey, type "Summer 2023 at the river with cousins X and Y" and move on would be great. If anyone has a suggestion I'm listening keenly! If this is built in to something on MacOS or a linux default desktop (like KDE or something I'm less familiar with), or is a small paid non-subscription app, I would buy it.
Sadly I've not found a self-hosted like-for-like replacement. My photos now move from my phone to a folder that's backed up to s3 via Restic [2].
[1]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2020/02/04/googl...
[2]: https://restic.net/
With AWSPics, sync your photos (just a simple directory tree on your local device) to S3 (I just do it manually from time to time from my desktop, but no doubt it can be done automatically at regular intervals, and/or it can be done directly from a phone), then Lambda functions generate thumbnails and browsable galleries (as static HTML), then you can view it all via CloudFront (password-protected using Origin Access Identity).
AWSPics isn't really being actively maintained these days. But it still works fine for me. The setup is cheap, you basically just pay for the S3 storage (currently costing me a bit under $1/month - and I guess you could use a cheaper S3-compatible alternative like Backblaze and reduce your costs further). No server to set up or maintain. Durable backup built-in. Fast reliable CDN built-in.
When I take a picture with my phone, it automatically gets backed up to iCloud, Google Photos, OneDrive, and Amazon Photos (free with prime).
When I had a personal computer, photos would sync to my computer and get backed up to BackBlaze also.
If you delete a photo on your phone, does it automatically get deleted from all those services in near-realtime?
Do you have an archive solution in place (distinct from your lack of a backup solution)?
I have 2TB on iCloud, 2TB on Google Drive, unlimited back up of photos on Amazon Drive and 1TB on OneDrive. When my OneDrive account gives out of space, I’ll just use one of the other 6 accounts that come with an Office 365 subscription.
I guess for an archive solution, I would use my personal AWS account that’s only used to store my videos that fell off the back of a truck once I took my Plex server off line.
I have 2TB of videos stored in AWS S3 Deep Glacier archive. I’m charged like $2 a month for it.
Here's a hypothetical - imagine you deleted a photo from your phone, and then modified (in place) a different photo.
Is your expectation that the first would be deleted from the various places you have it backed-up? (If not, then what's your process for fully destroying a photo?)
Would the second be propagated to each of your SaaS storage providers overwriting the existing, or renamed and situated adjacent to the original? And if you modified it in-place a second time?
If your phone were then to stop working and needed replacing, would the restoration process restore your phone to before, or after, the above deletions / changes were made? ie. would the deleted photo exist on your phone, would the second photo be pre, mid, or post modifications?
(I draw the distinction between backups and archives whereby backups get you to where you were most recently (pre incident), and archives let you restore to something like 'Tuesday afternoon, two weeks ago'. I'm talking here purely about backups vs sync though.)
And on the Mac Apple engineers have made sure the photos are not synced in a simple easy folder hierarchy that can be backed up elsewhere.
Google Photos just works.
So you have no backup.
OneDrive - I have an Office365 subscription
Amazon Photos - free with Amazon Prime
Google Drive - inertia and it still has the best search. I had it when it was free, unlimited storage
Works pretty well, although I wasn't seeking it out or researching other options
Everything else is in Immich
Pictures and videos I take get backed up to Google Photos
Once a year I do a Google Takeout and import into Immich
This way I get the best of both worlds