Google Photos file syncing and alternatives

[xiaofan]

Just wondering how people here sync Google Photos to local storage or NAS.

Google Photos will no longer be free from 1 June 2021. To be fair, I already enjoying using the free Google Photos for quite some years (it started in 2015). And I will pay for it. Good things are worth paying.
https://blog.google/products/photos/storage-changes

It is very easy uploading to Google Photos with the Android and iOS apps. So uploading is not an issue. Still it is good to have a local copy as well.

Some people will say NAS should be good alternative to Google Photos.

Ref: move from Google Photos to Synology/QNAP
https://nascompares.com/2020/12/23/switching-from-google-photos-to-a-synology-or-qnap-nas/

I will probably explore this as well, while still keeping Google Photos.

 

[xiaofan]

(To be updated)

So there are two ways to do this.

1) Mobile Phone photos --> Google Photos
Mobile Phone photos --> NAS, USB HDDs

2) Mobile Phone photos --> Google Photos --> NAS or USB HDDs

Since Google Photos already organize the files nicely and since I am going to pay for it, so the nature solution is actually Option 2 to me.

There are a few solutions I gathered from the website.
1) Using Google Takeout. Yes this is good for one time backup. I have just did that and downloaded about 450GB photos. But this is not a long term solution.

2) Using Google Drive as the intermediate or other 3rd party apps
https://www.pcworld.com/article/3407780/google-photos-backup-drive-auto-sync-metadata.html

3) gphotos-sync, it can run in Synology NAS using Docker
https://pypi.org/project/gphotos-sync/
https://hub.docker.com/r/gilesknap/gphotos-sync (Docker)
https://hub.docker.com/r/jakewharton/gphotos-sync (Docker)
https://github.com/gilesknap/gphotos-sync
https://github.com/JakeWharton/docker-gphotos-sync
https://www.reddit.com/r/synology/comments/j0t29s/google_photos_sync_with_gphotossync_docker/

4) There are other solutions as well (to be added).

 

[xiaofan]

Of course the other solution is to move to iCloud and OneDrive or Dropbox.
https://www.androidauthority.com/google-photos-alternatives-1177128/

iCloud is really nice for iOS. However, since I also use Android, so it is not a solution. OneDrive seems to be easier. It seems to be easier to sync OneDrive with Synology. And if I am paying for 2TB tier of Google One, then it makes sense to pay Microsoft Office 365 Family which can have 6TB storage and we get Office 365 as well.

Still I kind of like Google Photos after using it for so many years.

 

[xiaofan]

Please help to share your thoughts. Thanks.

 

[porky_88]

Google photos for sure as mentioned by you. Works across platform.

I belong to the kiasu + kiasi category. So I have a local backup on nas as well.

Recommend Synology. Been using this for years, 5+ at least and works like a charm.
For synology app
DS Photos (Android and ios, google photo and DS Photo backup is automatic as on android, on ios google photo and DS Photo backup needs to be manually triggered)
Synology Drive for online storage.

If you setup a VPN server on your LAN and have it connect based on profile on your mobile devices, the synology NAS storage is as good as any online storage.

 

[twosix]

amazon photos. paid service.

 

[xiaofan]

amazon photos. paid service.

I actually have Amazon Prime SG membership as well (one year free courtesy of Singtel) but then it does not offer free unlimited photo backup, unlike for US Amazon Prime members.

Still it does not seem to be easy to sync from Amazon Photos to local NAS.

Ref:
https://www.synology.com/en-us/knowledgebase/DSM/tutorial/Backup/Discontinued_access_to_Amazon_Drive

Starting from November 1, 2020, Synology Cloud Sync and Hyper Backup no longer have access to Amazon Drive, and the only way you can access your Amazon stored content is via Amazon Photos.

 

[twosix]

No NAS for me, everything online and multiple portable hdd. Take photo on the phones, immediately upload it to the cloud.

NAS can fail, and need attention to maintain it, need UPS too. Too troublesome to me.

 

[porky_88]

No NAS for me, everything online and multiple portable hdd. Take photo on the phones, immediately upload it to the cloud.

NAS can fail, and need attention to maintain it, need UPS too. Too troublesome to me.

Portable hdd can fail too But it is my 3rd tier of failsafe... hahahahahaha...

 

[xiaofan]

No NAS for me, everything online and multiple portable hdd. Take photo on the phones, immediately upload it to the cloud.

NAS can fail, and need attention to maintain it, need UPS too. Too troublesome to me.

I have poor experiences with uploading photos to WD Mycloud.

And I am lazy to import Photos from phones to USB HDD and I have leave it to Google Photos for a while. Last time I was using Flickr free 1TB along side Google Photos but Flickr discontinued the free services in 2018.

So now I am trying ways to sync Google Photos back to local storage, be it USB HDD or NAS.

Actually NAS runs Linux and can have things automatically done in the background, for example, auto sync with OneDrive and Google Drive. It is just Google Photos is still not well integrated into Google Drive.

 

[xiaofan]

Take note I do not have requirements like Plex as I use internet based streaming services and SingTel TV.

And file backup for Windows/macOS is not an issue as I use FreeFileSync under Windows and Mac. And we do not really generate many mission critical documents at home. In fact my Mac Mini M1 and Windows 10 laptop only have 256GB SSD storage each.

Only thing is for Photos/Video generated from the mobile phones. The mobile phones do not generate many other documents.

 

[Ah-Pin-Kor]

Of course the other solution is to move to iCloud and OneDrive or Dropbox.
https://www.androidauthority.com/google-photos-alternatives-1177128/

iCloud is really nice for iOS. However, since I also use Android, so it is not a solution. OneDrive seems to be easier. It seems to be easier to sync OneDrive with Synology. And if I am paying for 2TB tier of Google One, then it makes sense to pay Microsoft Office 365 Family which can have 6TB storage and we get Office 365 as well.

Still I kind of like Google Photos after using it for so many years.

I hope you are aware that the office 365 family is 6x1TB accounts. Not 6TB in one account.

Salting the land with HardwareZone Forums app

 

[xiaofan]

I hope you are aware that the office 365 family is 6x1TB accounts. Not 6TB in one account.

Yes I am aware. To me 2*1TB would be good enough, one for my wife and one for me.

OneDrive is actually pretty good at work to sync everything to the cloud. And changing laptop is just so easy.

On the other hand, I am reluctant to go with OneDrive myself since I am trying to stay away from Office 365 at home. We are moving to Google Docs/Sheet and LibreOffice now that Microsoft extended support of old Office 2010 has ended on 13 Oct 2020.

 

[xiaofan]

Timeliner seems to be an interesting solution to download your own data from the online platforms.
https://github.com/mholt/timeliner

Supported data sources

• Facebook
• Google Location History
• Google Photos
• Twitter
• Instagram
• ...

 

[xiaofan]

perkeep also tries to import Google Photos and more.
https://perkeep.org/doc/compare
https://github.com/perkeep/gphotos-cdp

 

[xiaofan]

https://www.multcloud.com/tutorials/sync-google-photos-with-onedrive-6289.html
Multicloud seems to be pretty good but very expensive.

Yearly Unlimited plan is at US$89.9 (usual price US$119.9).

 

[hwzlite]

Use old-sckool Rclone :

Refs:
- https://rclone.org/drive/
- https://forum.rclone.org/t/how-to-use-rclone-mount-as-network-in-windows-for-backup/21379
- https://forum.rclone.org/t/use-rclone-instead-of-backup-sync/16584
- https://forum.rclone.org/t/sync-google-photos-issues-src-chnage-no-dest-deletes/21309

 

[xiaofan]

Copy your photos to a service outside of Google
https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/9666875?hl=en&ref_topic=7188671

This is interesting if you want to move to Flickr or Microsoft Onedrive.

 

[xiaofan]

Alternatively if you want to migrate to Microsoft Onedrive, Dropbox and Box, you can use Google Takeout alternative delivery method. https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3024190?hl=en

 

[xiaofan]

Use old-sckool Rclone :

Refs:
- https://rclone.org/drive/
- https://forum.rclone.org/t/how-to-use-rclone-mount-as-network-in-windows-for-backup/21379
- https://forum.rclone.org/t/use-rclone-instead-of-backup-sync/16584
- https://forum.rclone.org/t/sync-google-photos-issues-src-chnage-no-dest-deletes/21309

You can see that there are limitations for Google Photos. And Google has made the API worse and worse over the years.
https://forum.rclone.org/t/sync-google-photos-issues-src-chnage-no-dest-deletes/21309

Google Photos is good but the whole problem seems to be that it is a sepeate services from Google Drive.