What are you using for photo storage and organization?

Hey, I’m wondering what everyone’s solution is for self hosted “cloud” storage of photos? I’ve been running a PhotoPrism server on my Synology for a while but it’s missing some features I’d like to have. While we’ve set up auto-uploading from different phones to the web server, I haven’t found an easy way to share read-only access to the pictures or specific albums. There is an admin login, but no way (that I’ve found) to create multiple users with different permissions.

So SelfHosted lemmy, what’s your solve for photo storage, sorting, and sharing?

CaptObvious,

Have you looked at NextCloud? I have an instance running on an RPi that fits my needs (storage without sharing outside the home firewall). For anything that needs sharing, I just copy those images to an old Dropbox that I’ve kept and share from there.

ablackcatstail,
@ablackcatstail@lemmy.goblackcat.com avatar

Nextcloud works well for general files. Immich is the way to go specifically for photo storing. It’s got a whole lot of added features.

CaptObvious,

I hadn’t heard of Immich. I’ll take a look. Thanks!

greatley,

Nextcloud on it’s own can’t read images EXIF data so it can’t sort them by date. I’ve tried Memories addon and it seems to work well, except for transcoding movies.

CaptObvious,

Good to know, thanks. I generally sort by hand if they need sorting, but using EXIF would be a nice time saver.

mikni,
@mikni@lemmy.friheter.com avatar

I’m a fan of Immich.

immich.app

github.com/immich-app/immich

CAPSLOCKFTW,

Photoprism is one user only, maybe some day they wil implement multi user. You can donate to give them an incentive to work more on it. For me it is good enough.

traches,

They do support multiple users, but they gated the feature behind a subscription.

CAPSLOCKFTW,

Ah, thanks for the heads up. Last time I looked the said they might implement it in the future.

lemming741,

You can add a line to the docker compose to unlock it, let me see if I can find it

lemming741,

You used to be able to PHOTOPRISM_SPONSOR: “true” but they plugged that hole. They poor-mouth on reddit and GitHub. People that self-host are trying to get away from subscriptions, you think they’d see that

CAPSLOCKFTW,

Thanks for the effort but i might just toss them the coins.

lemming741,

For the rest of your life?

Verbose2812,

immich!

damnthefilibuster,

I’m using the PhotoSync app to backup to Dropbox and to my local HDD from multiple phones and tablets. Seems to work like a charm. Better than the shitty Dropbox iOS photos backup for sure.

stephenc,

I just use a folder of photos and then use digiKam to manage them. But it’s just me, I don’t need to share photos with anyone else. I like digiKam but it doesn’t play great with concurrent users out of the box. I think there’s a way to use a shared database though.

ErwinLottemann,

I sync them to out local fileserver using syncthing and recently started using immich (since it supports custom libraries now)

somedaysoon, (edited )
@somedaysoon@lemmy.world avatar

It sounds like we have similar setups. I do the same with syncthing, works great, and not only backs up my photos but everything else on my phone like custom ringtones, notifications, exported backups from many different apps along with full neo-backup exports… basically all the common /sdcard/ directories like: Audio, Backups, DCIM, Downloads, Pictures, Documents, Screenshots etc.

I’m interested in immich for it’s multiuser sharing so I can easily share photos with others in the house. I have a huge directory of images, all sorted in folders, so until I can add that read only, immich isn’t an option for me. I tried setting it up with the monolithic docker image, and it didn’t import the directory the way I wanted it to, and seemingly made full copies of all the images into it’s own upload directory when I tried importing with the cli-tool. I was looking at it recently and the read only mode seems early stages. How do you like it so far?

Immich seems like it’s aim is to be firstly a phone photo backup solution… and that is not what I want… I already have a backup solution. All I really want is a mobile friendly way to look at all the photos I have already. PhotoPrism works exactly how I want but the one feature it lacks that I would really like is multiuser. I have seen there is a workaround for sharing with PhotoPrism where you can run individual instances for each user and then share a common directory… and right now that is preferable to immich for me unless they sort out the read only feature.

Showroom7561,

Synology Moments, which is their older version of their photo app. I still use the older version because it supports object recognition. I just wish it had a map view.

gadgetzombie,

Fwiw I read that object recognition is coming back with 7.2

There’s a DSM docker that enables the use of Synology Photos without having to buy a Diskstation as well if others are scrolling through this

Showroom7561,

There’s a DSM docker that enables the use of Synology Photos without having to buy a Diskstation as well if others are scrolling through this

Woah! I’ll need to check that out!

umbraroze,
@umbraroze@kbin.social avatar

I have a Zyxel NAS server that just offers a SMB share. I'm just dumping my photos there under YYYY/MM/DD scheme, and converting all of my Nikon NEF files to DNG. (For importing photos to the NAS and generating backups, I have a PowerShell script and a PowerAutomate action. Also mild usage of Dropbox to transfer files from my cellphone.)

For actual management of photos, I use ACDSee Photo Studio Professional, and it just writes all tag information to the files themselves, so I can basically use any other software for photo management. For actual photo editing, I use DXO PhotoLab and Affinity Photo most of the time.

traches,

I’m currently on photoprism like you, but I am looking to switch to immich.

I solved the sharing problem by having a family-only instance locally (accessible via tailscale), connected via WebDAV to a public instance on a cheap VPS (which I also use for other things). We have to share twice, but I don’t have any holes in my firewall. Currently I don’t believe immich can do something like this, but I’d love to be proven wrong

CapgrasDelusion,

Currently just using Synology photos but with an eye on immich, as others have mentioned and plan to switch now that it has facial and object recognition. At this point it can do everything I want and has the benefit of being open source.

You have a Synology and Synology photos will do the features you mentioned (multiple users, different permissions). While I wouldn't recommend it now over Immich I'm curious why you went with photoprism initially?

soulofdragnsfire,

Had the photoprism container set up before I moved to the Synology. That’s really the only reason…

opensourcedeeznuts,

I’ve been using Photoprism. Single-user is fine for me. I see lots of people switching to immich, but haven’t checked it out myself.

Photoprism supports sharing albums via link to people who don’t have accounts. Mine is remotely accessible using Tailscale. I would like to set up proper remote access via DNS, but haven’t made that leap yet, I’m too nervous about opening ports up.

lemming741,

I’m happy with photoprism too. I paid for the photosync plugins.

I don’t love the free-mium model, but you can edit your docker config to unlock it I hear.

czardestructo,
@czardestructo@lemmy.world avatar

Not anymore it syncs up with their subscription server to enable features. If they don’t enable proper multi user support soon I’m going to bail.

bjeanes,

Photoprism supports sharing albums via link to people who don’t have accounts.

I am definitely missing this in Immich, but otherwise happy I switched over.

TheInsane42,
@TheInsane42@lemmy.world avatar

Pretty simple here, directory with my phpto’s, which I renamed to show the subject, date and an id for that day. Simple script to show the images when on a website, manual viewing from disk when archived.

I pull them off the phone via a cable and adb pull command. All photo’s are read only for my wife. (And by default for all when on the website)

No need to use software when you can write some small scripts, devise an ordering system and run Linux. ;)

JStenoien,

No need to use software when you can write some small scripts, devise an ordering system and run Linux. consign yourself to not having any of the modern QoL features everyone enjoys ;)

FTFY

TheInsane42,
@TheInsane42@lemmy.world avatar

No need to use software when you can write some small scripts, devise an ordering system and run Linux. consign yourself to not having any of the modern QoL features being forced to buy/be locked into products everyone enjoys hates. ;)

Everything is a choice, for me, “one size fits somebody, hopefully, and the rest has to adapt” doesn’t work at all. I started with MSX, then Atari ST, used a PC 1 game, went via OS/2 (BBS) to Linux in '94 and stayed there after a clash with Windows 95 during an internship. My current employer gave me an iPhone to use and after running rooted Android and Cyanogenmod/Lineage since 2012 I hate it with a passion, to restricted for me.

Some will be totally happy to dump all their photo’s on photobucket, google photo’s,… it just doesn’t work for me, as for one, my photos come from DLSR, compacts, scanned analog photos and a few from the phone. I have 24y worth of photo’s on local disk (229G), I make almost no photos with the phone and when I do I usually want to put them online for own reference pretty quickly. For me, with almost no photo’s on the phone (max 10), this works like a charm. (and once I made a few scripts, it costs me less time then trying to get my photo’s back from all those apps)

I suspect we’re all a tad weary of companies offering ‘free’ storage for your data and then use it for other means or charge you when you want your data back. It’s an option that works, but requires a tad more knowledge and time to setup. That free storage feels more like ‘legal ransom ware’ then anything else. When your not paying, you’re the product being sold. (which doesn’t guarantee that when you are paying you’re not sold as well)

When you want something you either have to:

  1. find the perfect product
  2. adapt the product to make it perfect for you
  3. adapt yourself to make you perfect for the product
  4. create something yourself

The 1st is near impossible, 2nd costs time, sometimes to much, 3rd is most of the times a no-go here and that leaves 4. When you have the skills, 4 will become the option you use more and more. (Especially when you enjoy making your own solutions)

freeman,

A synology NAS and dsphoto. Its a mess.

I have considered photprism, never set it up though (other things got in the way).

gladoz,

There is also Synology photos and I like it but see a lot of people recommending immich, someone that has used both know if there is notable difference or benefits?

archy,

I am migrating from Syno Photos, which had been the greatest solution I had found, now to Immich, which is so polished and sharing is 10x easier than in Syno. The only gripe to Syno Photos is their implementation of Public/Personal space which is confusing and if you want to share something you have to store duplicate photos in those spaces. I used conditional albums to share certain faces with the partner and it has been OK.

Now it’s 100% Immich for me:

  • Clean, intuitive interface
  • Easy sharing
  • Very good face detection, better than Google (I compared the same pics I uploaded to both)
  • Easy transition for a Google Photos user
  • FOSS, you’re in full control over the deployment
  • Machine learning container to tag pictures
  • CLI interface to mass upload

Both galleries claim motion photos support, but for me neither actually works. Immich claims iPhone’s Live Photos, which I don’t care for, but Syno Photos say that in version DSM7 support Android Motion Pics, that I could not confirm.

freeman,

I need to check out immich it sounds like.

I looked at photoprism. DIdnt really excite me but I have about 20k unsorted photos because of the way dsphoto does uploads and I dont have time to sort them.

I dont even really care about folder structure as much as geo data/time date/event style sorting.

paradox2011,

Yeah, seems like Immich is kind if taking over. It really is an excellent one stop solution for automated multi-user backup. Ive been using it for a few months and its solid.

The other option that I really like is a combination of software: Nextcloud + Les Pas. Nextcloud is the server where images are stored in a flat folder system, and Les Pas is an android photo album app that organizes and manages the albums. Its super nice and has some really advanced organization features. Worth checking out if you want to use nextcloud as the storage server.

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