icloud_photos_do VS PhotoPrism

> They don't offer an appropriate API to get photos out.

There's this: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/photokit "The framework provides access to photos on the person’s device and in iCloud."

If you want to use undocumented APIs on non-Apple devices directly, there are projects like https://github.com/steilerDev/icloud-photos-sync and https://github.com/icloud-photos-downloader/icloud_photos_do... that appear to be able to do this.

I use https://github.com/icloud-photos-downloader/icloud_photos_do... running on my NAS to regularly download photos from my wife's iCloud account. The photos are stored in full resolution on iCloud with the EXIF data, unlike Google Photos, so that's nice. The only annoyance is that you need to reauthorize the tool every three months. But it sends you a reminder when the time is coming up.

To avoid future data lose, you can backup all your icloud photos locally. Checkout icloud_photos_downloader[1], they have a docker container that is drop-dead simple to use. I run this[3] about once a month, I could probably automate it, but that feel like it'll take more time than it'll save[2].

[1] https://github.com/icloud-photos-downloader/icloud_photos_do...

[2] https://xkcd.com/1319/

[3]

I have recently switched to a M1 Mac Mini, and just have each family member sign in to that using Remote Desktop. It brings the added bonus of working as a content cache for anything iCloud.

My only gripe is that it downloads the shared photo album (new in iOS 16) once for each account, and when your photo library is 1.8TB, that suddenly becomes a lot of wasted space. When it comes to backing it up the backup software deduplicates the data, but not for the initial storage.

I really wish Apple would implement some kind of method for backing up photos stored in the cloud without the need for mirroring them.

Before the M1 I was using iCloud photo downloader ( https://github.com/icloud-photos-downloader/icloud_photos_do... ) on a Raspberry Pi 4 which also worked well, but in the end I got tired of iCloud credentials expiring every ~90 days, requiring each family member to login again through a console.

Considering the M1 idles at roughly 20% more than a RPi4 (M1 at 4.5W) it was an easy sell. I just got the cheapest model and added a large USB drive. Using a Mac also gives you the possibility of using something like Backblaze Personal with unlimited backup storage, if that’s your thing :-)

- a hyperbackup task backs up the (encrypted) photos to Backblaze B2.

That way i have my photos in apple's cloud, on my nas and in another cloud.

What do I use to download/sync the photos from iCloud to the NAS, you ask?? It's an awesome project called "iCloud Photos Downloader" - https://github.com/icloud-photos-downloader/icloud_photos_do...

I have it running in a docker container on the nas and it periodically syncs and keeps itself up to date, no hassle. https://hub.docker.com/r/boredazfcuk/icloudpd

icloud-photo-downloader: https://github.com/icloud-photos-downloader/icloud_photos_do...

I've used this to great success! As far as I could tell, it grabbed every photo and video at the highest quality. Very happy.

I've been using icloud-photos-downloader[0] for a while now, running as a Scheduled Task on my Synology. It supports 2FA as well, I just have to re-auth every 3-4 months.

[0] : https://github.com/icloud-photos-downloader/icloud_photos_do...

I have been using https://www.photoprism.app for a couple of years, and it works better than expected, with the latest updates it's actually quite fast and the face tagging works reasonably well.

For self-hosting, there's Photoprism[1] as well.

Ente's strength lies in end-to-end encryption[2] and its cloud[3] offering so you don't have to worry about reliability.

So if self-hosting is what you're after, Immich, Photoprism and Damselfly (TIL!) are perhaps better designed to serve your needs.

[1]: https://github.com/photoprism/photoprism

[2]: https://ente.io/architecture

[3]: https://ente.io/reliability

For quite a while I'm also in search for a solution which allows me to share galleries with my family, without having to ask them to jump through hoops in order to access them.

After some searching I'm now testing photoprism [1] which is a fantastic application, especially for self-hosting of photos. There's no mobile app for it (yet) and user-management is just starting to get implemented, but it shows alot of promise. Unfortunately not yet enough for putting it on the tablet of my granny but one can hope (and donate!)

Either way, I'm afraid that building a good mobile gallery app is an equally large task, after all the best solution would be to replace the users' native gallery-app with an equivalent that also supports custom Online-Galleries...

[1]: https://www.photoprism.app/

out of curiosity, why no sort-of-established pkg and internal dirs? What do you think of https://github.com/photoprism/photoprism structure?

Thank you!

Ente was first a piece of hardware, then a self-host-able project, but we had a hard time monetizing both, which lead to the E2EE pivot.

TIL about TagSpaces, thanks!

Our server can be open-sourced, but we're unsure of the value E2EE will provide, with services like Photoprism[1] and Immich[2] already doing a good job of serving customers who prefer to self host. In this context E2EE might become a constraint, rather than a feature.

[1]: https://github.com/photoprism/photoprism

[2]: https://github.com/immich-app/immich

Ive seen github issues like this one https://github.com/photoprism/photoprism/issues/907 in which it is implied that this is very very difficult.

Hi. I want to implement an image server similar to Photoprism using ImageAI to tag images based on objects and context. However I don't want to spend to much time working on the frontend, at first I were thinking about using Danbooru and use Flexbooru or the web interface on my phone. But it doesn't have any encryption or password protection (since the purpose of it is to be used as a public image board).

https://www.photoprism.app in Docker.

PhotoPrism[0] and some ugly plumbing[1] to semantically tag all images in the gallery.

0: https://github.com/photoprism/photoprism