Integrating a personal photos cloud with smartphones

Operating Systems & Open Source
1

Hi, this is my first post but I thought it about time to join the community.

So I have an old Athlon x2 box I’m setting up as a multi-purpose server at my parents’ house for backups, file sharing&archiving and a network/cloud storage specifically for photos and videos with the aim of finishing setup before I start uni in 6ish weeks. Data privacy is a big concern now so I’m trying to avoid entrusting big corporations with mine or my parents’ data.

The backups and general file server I should be able to sort myself but with the cloud photos I’m not sure how to proceed. I’m looking for a solution whereby the end-user experience is similar to viewing iCloud or Google Drive photos natively using a gallery app on a smartphone and being able to upload local files to it.

The issue I’m having is that neither the pre-installed iOS nor Android gallery apps support network storage that isn’t provided by the phone manufacturer, Google or Dropbox. I could use a file manager app but they’re not optimised for photos and I’m looking for a solution with a similar workflow to viewing local photos on the gallery app. I’ve also tried Kodi but it’s far too clunky and forces landscape orientation with seemingly no way to change it.

TL;DR

I have a server I wish to use as an alternative to cloud photo services like iCloud and Google Drive, with a similar user experience on Android and iOS to what iCloud and Drive provide (when connected to gallery apps to show contents alongside local photos). This is purely for photos and videos

Many thanks in advance! :smiley:

2

try syncthing, set the source node to ignore deletes and the phone to send only.

It’s p2p so there’s no 3rd parties or config involved.

for the viewer you can just put the syncthing sync folder on nfs/smb and use x-plore or es file explorer to view the remote files.

3

I’ll give syncthing a try tonight and see what success I get. However, I’m trying to avoid the situation where I’m using a standard file manager app to view them as the interface isn’t at all optimised for use as a gallery app.

I appreciate it’s a somewhat niche problem but viewing local and remote photos seamlessly from an app like Google Photos and Apple’s gallery allow shouldn’t be impossible

4

it may actually integrate if you use a samba client to mount the share, files and other apps would index its contents.

Not entirely sure though

5

Nextcloud.

Easy to setup, has sync clients for Linux, Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android.

Also includes calendaring and contact sync, collaborative editing, and a wide variety of plugins. It also supports file encryption, since privacy is a concern for you.

Fully open source, but also has commercial support, and is very mature.

6

This looks like a good solution, imhigh. Especially as it has options for other services that I currently rely on my Google account for. I think this might be the one, thanks!

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