DeGoogle Yourself @lemmy.ml illi @lemm.ee 1 yr. ago

Any alternatives to Google Photos?

I'm starting my degoogling journey (mostly looking into the various options at hand) and I was wondering what hood alternatives to Goohle Photos is there? I'm specifically wondering about a service that would double both as a cloud storage and a gallery with a timeline and such. But currently it's only cloud storage backup (or Instagtam-likes, which is bot something I want) as far as I can tell?

23 comments

Immich is the best I've found. Has native mobile apps that can auto upload pics/videos and you can use their CLI utility to bulk import large libraries if you want. Very active development too.

Edit: sorry, didn't see the cloud storage requirement. Immich is purely a photo hosting/upload service.
- If you're tech savvy you can run Immich in the cloud though. Will cost a bit but probably not more than something like Onedrive will.
Maybe try Immich? You can self host it or maybe host it somewhere
- How does it compare to Photoprism when it comes to image recognition?
  
  I don't know actually, since I dont own a server. Heard its pretty decent tho
Nextcloud is a service that ticks most if those boxes (if not all). You can self host if that’s your thing or pay for a hosted service.
- Les Pas can act as a gallery for it without the need for main Nextcloud app. It's available on F-Droid
I have been using ente for around two years now and it has been working well. It’s not perfect, but has been improving quickly. Your photos are end-to-end encrypted so you are the only one who can access them. The app is also open source and available on F-Droid which is awesome. The prices aren’t the best, but privacy isn’t free. You either need to pay for it, or put the time and effort into hosting it yourself like Immich or Nextcloud. Ente does have a 1 year free trial with 1GB of storage to test it out.

Edit: After rereading your post, I saw you wanted general cloud storage as well. Maybe give Filen a try. It is also end-to-end encrypted and open source. It doesn’t have any photo specific features like albums since it is a generic cloud storage service, but it does have a photos tab to view your uploaded photos.
- Ente seems almost perfect on first sight, thanks for that! Will look into it more.
Nextcloud (either self-hosted, or via a provider) offers a photo gallery option.
Synology photos is exactly that, comes with synology nas.
- This is the one I've found, but was not sure about setting up a NAS. On the other hand, the investment might return when comparing to a monthly payment. I mostlynposted to know other options.
  
  Thanks though, it is good to have it mentioned here for sure.
  
  I also use the nas for automated daily backup of my PC.
I use immich, it works the best out of anything I've tried (including nextcloud which randomly didn't upload pictures for some reason)

If you don't wanna self host it, there are some services which will host it (and other projects) for you (the only one I can remember is pikapods.com, never used them though)
Cryptee has photo storage that lets you sort it by date. You need to pay for bigger storage though
- This looks like it fits what I was lookig for the most, will look into it! Prices are a bit steeper than what I would like but might be worth it. Important thing is there is the free tier to test it out.
  
  I was not expecting any free service like that and frankly, would prefer something I can pay for. Makes it more likely I'm a customer, not a product. Thanks!
For the cloud storage part I can tell that Nextcloud serves the purpose fine.

I have configured our Android devices with Nextcloud app to upload new images directly into the my-nextcloud-user/files/SofortUpload folder. It has a structure /SofortUpload/ImageFolder/year/months/images, so for example /SofortUpload/Camera/2023/08/IMG_20230803_174100.jpg

("Sofort" is German for "immediate")

This auto-upload has been configured and happens (in our cases) also for the mobile device folders Pictures, Screenshots, Stickers, Telegram and Wallpaper.

For the timeline and viewing part I would also take suggestions, as having not yet found a good solution.
Just found this: https://stingle.org/

Only three bucks a month for 100gb aaaand it has F-Droid distro
I've been enjoying Jottacloud. It's got a timeline, ai search, a sync folder (for auto syncing files to all your devices), and automatic backup from your camera roll.

I also liked cryp.ee when I tested it but it can't do automatic backup.
Signup to filen. It has got autoupload of photos and 20GB initial free storage
Probably no better than google privacy wise etc but Amazon photos covers all of your bases, and is included as part of the prime subscription. So if you are a prime member you may already have a “free” alternative. There is no storage limit for regular photos either.

It’s actually the reason I became a prime member here in Japan, because just for the photo storage it was much cheaper than other cloud options like apple etc.
- I saw this but not feeling much better about having it stored on Amazon. Good tip though!
- Amazon Photos daily memories is terrible though. With Google Photos, I get photos, slideshows, and others every day, usually with photos from several years. On Amazon Photos, I'm lucky if I get half a dozen plain photos in a day, usually from the same set.

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