10 ms·

Amazon Prime Photos

79 points by wengzilla 11y ago

jkraker 11y ago
This was announced a couple months ago.
skool 11y ago
If they included unlimited video storage this would be more interesting. (This was announced November 4th)
aasdh 11y ago
I will pay you to do upvote. Reach me on Skyp: cobalmx
recycledair 11y ago
It's a free trials. It costs $11.99/year.
- mey 11y ago
  This detail is horribly hidden. It looks like it's 11.99/year for non-prime members. Free for prime members. Getting this from, go into your Amazon Cloud Drive, then click Manage Storage on the right side. Two plans listed, Unlimited Photos and Unlimited Everything.
  - mey 11y ago
    Found this http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId=201480950 http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId=...
- johnnymonster 11y ago
  It's an add-on service for prime members not a trial. I'm not sure if there is an option for non-prime members. Edit: looks like it is 11.99 for non-prime members. Also the unlimited everything option looks pretty cool. Really trumps dropbox and google drive.
ck2 11y ago
I'm sure someone somewhere is working on code to break up large files into multiple images. $1/month for image hosting is dirt cheap though if you can do public url access to images.
alexandrerond 11y ago
Reminds me of Microsoft's unlimited storage adventure http://www.theverge.com/2015/11/3/9662414/microsoft-reduces-free-onedrive-storage-15-to-5-gb-removes-unlimited http://www.theverge.com/2015/11/3/9662414/microsoft-reduces-...
- SyneRyder 11y ago
  Bingo. And in years gone by Bitcasa did the same, starting with an unlimited plan and once people were locked in, increasing prices 10x (from $99 to $999): http://www.engadget.com/2013/11/19/bitcasa-infinite-cloud-storage-price-change/ http://www.engadget.com/2013/11/19/bitcasa-infinite-cloud-st...
  - Veratyr 11y ago
    Bitcasa is even worse. Not only did they sell unlimited and retract it, they claim zero knowledge encryption without providing it, as the key is linked to the password which is used to access your account through the web interface. The sad thing is apparently they're partnered with larger companies like Samsung, Intel and Huawei, so their product is being spread to people who likely don't know any better.
aresant 11y ago
To clear up the pricing confusion: - It's FREE for Prime Members - It's $11.99 a year for non-prime members The other caveat is that it's unlimited for photos, but only 5gig of video.
- oh_sigh 11y ago
  Can I store my videos frame-by-frame as images?
  - Osiris 11y ago
    All JPG images are free, so go for it.
  - vagelim 11y ago
    ffmpeg -i input.mov -r 24 output_%06d.png
    - burningion 11y ago
      Great! Now embed audio into each of these pngs as a waveform at the bottom.
  - wslh 11y ago
    There is another plan for unlimited video for $ 59.99: https://www.amazon.com/gp/drive/landing/everything/?ref_=cd_asin_photos_getue https://www.amazon.com/gp/drive/landing/everything/?ref_=cd_...
    - Numberwang 11y ago
      Still, no playback for 5+ min of video which makes it not usable for me.
- copperx 11y ago
  $11.99 a year is quite cheap. Although I have MUCH less than 100GB of images, so I think Google's $1.99/mo for 100GB is better so I can use the rest of the storage for something else.
wspeirs 11y ago
It's clear that the cost of storage is approaching $0, but it's surprising to me that the price of these company's services vary so much: - Box: $180/year for unlimited (https://www.box.com/pricing/ https://www.box.com/pricing/) - Google: $120/year for 1TB (https://support.google.com/drive/answer/2375123?hl=en https://support.google.com/drive/answer/2375123?hl=en) - Dropbox: $100/year for 1TB (https://www.dropbox.com/pro https://www.dropbox.com/pro) - Amazon: $60/year for unlimited (https://www.amazon.com/gp/drive/landing/everything/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/drive/landing/everything/) - Microsoft: $60/year for 1TB (https://products.office.com/en-us/business/compare-office-365-for-business-plans https://products.office.com/en-us/business/compare-office-36...) They all offer approximately the same service, but from cheapest to priciest is almost 3x. I wonder how much sand is left in the hourglass for companies like Box & Dropbox? Also, how much longer will Google keep their price at $120/year for 1TB when Amazon is half that for unlimited storage? Also, does your average Joe even care when you get 15GB for free from Google?
- agildehaus 11y ago
  Absolutely none of these are "unlimited" storage. It's simply overselling. Even the providers that are selling N terabytes for $Q are counting on a certain percentage of those users not utilizing that much. This is why the prices vary so wildly, because each provider is doing different math and hedging different bets.
  - gist 11y ago
    No doubt also different things for each hidden in the TOS. This same thing happens with "unlimited" web hosting providers (godaddy in particular).
  - kordless 11y ago
    > hedging different bets More specifically, they each have their own unique business model which they believe will perform best in the market. You can "oversell" future storage successfully if you know the usage growth rates.
- Veratyr 11y ago
cmurf 11y ago
JPEG only? Or Raw/DNG too?
- Veratyr 11y ago
  They support RAW files: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201649930 https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=... This makes it superior to Google Photos for backup in my opinion. Amazon provides free (with Prime) backup with no limits, RAW support and no recompression. Google Photos provides it for free but with lossy compression and without the possibility of retaining the range of RAW.
  - xur17 11y ago
    It definitely makes it superior to Google Photos for backup, but Google Photos is drastically superior for viewing your photos. Automatic face detection / grouping, and really good search functionality help a ton.
ausjke 11y ago
time to ditch flickr then? as I have the prime membership at amazon? wish I can import flickr into amazon somehow. on the other hand I hope they support client-side encryption so someone can only view the pictures after they're decrypted
- ausjke 11y ago
  how to define "picture", can I hide my files into some picture then upload it and essentially use amazon-picture-unlimited as an unlimited file storage?
  - mxuribe 11y ago
    While I haven't read Amazon's terms of use as to whether this is ok from a policy perspective, most back-up services don't check for "files within pictures". In fact, the hiding of data within imagery is called Steganography: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography Although the intent with Steganography is (weak) cryptography, the method should work for your purposes; only way to know is to test it! Admittedly until you've tested this thoroughly, I would not RELY on this for anything other than a fun test. Enjoy! :-)
- ghaff 11y ago
  This isn't really the same as Flickr though. It's photo backup. For that, it may actually be better than flickr in that it apparently supports the major raw file formats including DNG. However, it doesn't seem to be designed for any sort of photo sharing (although you can access photos remotely yourself). Bottom line is that, if you're just using flickr for backup then, yes, something like this is probably a better match. On the other hand, if you use flickr as a photo sharing site and the backup is at least partially incidental, then I'd probably stay with flickr and maybe use both. I have a flickr Pro subscription but I don't really view it as a backup system although having an additional set of (JPEG) backups of my favorite photos is a nice side benefit.
remremz 11y ago
I just use Google Photos for backup which while is reduced in quality its enough for my needs. Best of all its unlimited storage and its free.
joesmo 11y ago
The risk of Amazon shutting down your account, even as a Prime member, is too high to justify investment in any of their cloud services or hardware. Even if they don't actually shut down your account and just send you threats based on fictional terms of service that you've never agreed to, as they did to me, I would never trust them with anything sensitive again. I wouldn't be surprised if they start shutting down AWS services in the future for arbitrary violations not stated in any terms of service. This kind of behavior should not have to be tolerated by loyal, paying customers, yet Amazon has been doing it continuously for many years.
- ihodes 11y ago
  Why did they threaten to shut down your account?
  - kimcheekumquat 11y ago
    Probably doing something that violates TOS or something borderline illegal. I see cases like his all the time on various forums and they seems to be missing some important details...
    - joesmo 11y ago
      There's nothing illegal about returning defective products. In fact, there's nothing in the TOS about returning too many products or anything like that.
      - kimcheekumquat 11y ago
        Oh okay I see. I thought you meant you were using Amazon Web Services to do something or host something borderline illegal, which I have actually seen a couple times while working here.
  - joesmo 11y ago
    Please see above comment.
- 11y ago
gtrubetskoy 11y ago
I wonder if you can use it to back up arbitrary files - if you take any file and prepend it with "GIF89a=\t0\t;;;;" it becomes a valid GIF.
- bognition 11y ago
  ha, I remember when people used Gmail to do this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GmailFS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GmailFS
frik 11y ago
Amazon nags me quite a bit and tries to upsale me to Prime on the Amazon website. Every single time I click "check out" and in several other places I get these Prime popovers or full page ads with a very small "No thanks" or "Cancel" link. There are now even normal non-Amazon products that are sold only to Prime members. Is this how Amazon.com cares about loyal 15+ year consumers? I DO NOT WANT PRIME, GOT IT? Not now, not tomorrow, not next months, never. Why should I pay a premium membership for a virtual shopping center?!? Are there any "Prime"-nag-screen blocker browser plugins?...
- wpietri 11y ago
  I had this problem with the Amazon Music app even though I already pay for Amazon Prime. Every time I opened it, it would be "Hey, want to join Prime Music?" And I would say no, because IDGAF. And then it would ask me a second time, as if it couldn't quite believe me. After months of this, I said yes just to get it to shut up, which meant that any attempt to listen to my music would it involve displaying lots of things that they could give me for free, none of which I wanted. Eventually I just stopped using the Amazon Music app. It amazes me how much large company product design becomes about what companies want the users to do, with so little attention paid to what users actually want. I already had to uninstall the Amazon app and block notifications from the Kindle app because they insisted on chirpily notifying me of exciting special offers. By which they meant their various attempts to get me to buy crap I don't want.
- blhack 11y ago
  I'm seriously curious why you don't want prime. Do you live in an area where it doesn't benefit you or something? If you are really ordering more than a few items a year for them, it makes total financial sense to get it for the shipping alone. The movies, photo storage, tv shows, music etc. are just icing on the cake.
  - frik 11y ago
    What's so special about "saying no"? I have my principles, and companies better respect them. I got several downvotes for my comment, but in the end more upvotes. Btw. shipping is free for my check outs too. Maybe I just don't want and need their streaming services? Maybe I already use something that fits my needs? Maybe I live in an area where they tested Prime and therefor made the delivery time worse (from 2 days to 4-5 days)? Ask yourself: would you like to pay a membership fee for Walmart/etc and for shopping centers? Nevertheless, Amazon.com is first and foremost an digital shopping center. It's my right as a customer to say "no thanks", and Amazon should acknowledge my decision.
spilk 11y ago
Didn't they launch this last year? http://www.informationweek.com/cloud/cloud-storage/amazon-prime-gains-unlimited-photo-storage-with-caveats/d/d-id/1317235 http://www.informationweek.com/cloud/cloud-storage/amazon-pr...
- zeeshanm 11y ago
  I guess nobody paid attention last time. It's a classic trick to launch over and over again until someone cares to give two cents.
  - dkrich 11y ago
    Well to be fair, I don't see anywhere in the page itself indicating that this is a new launch, just the HN title.
- ctomaybe 11y ago
  I was going to say... we were launching it just after I left the team last year!
- gramakri 11y ago
  Not 100% sure but I think the last time around it was announced as free with prime - https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/primephotos https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/primephotos ? This time around it looks like a standalone product.
- joeblau 11y ago
  Amazon relaunches the same products all the time. It's a soft launch until it gains traction or dies.
  - cwh 11y ago
    nothing was relaunched, it's just a landing page. i'm not sure why this is on HN.
    - 11y ago
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
silveira 11y ago
Maybe this could be an alternative to Flickr for me. Unfortunately there is no Linux client, I hope there is an API.
AdmiralAsshat 11y ago
Anyone have any info on Amazon's security practices for their cloud/photo storage? I'm slightly more tempted to go with them to store my photos than Google, if only for the implicit contract that I'm paying them to be a Prime Member and hence paying in some way for the storage, so they should in theory be less likely to try to profit off of my photos...but I'm also still paranoid.
- bognition 11y ago
  I'd be surprised if they aren't just using a thin layer on top of S3 which is pretty solid. Historically amazon has a really good track record of keeping data secured.
jobu 11y ago
Are there any tools to upload the Photos library for Mac users? I tried the "Amazon Cloud Drive" app, but it's useless. Even when I drill down into the .photoslibrary package the Amazon syncing app gives a "File type error".
- Corrado 11y ago
  My thoughts exactly. The first company (besides Apple) to come up with a Photos plugin has my business. I'm currently using the Apple cloud product but it is sooo confusing it's almost not worth it. IMHO, Dropbox got this right. Simple to install, simple to configure, simple to use. Apple's solution is a confusing mess of Family members, devices, Apple iCloud accounts, etc. Every time I share something with my wife's iPad I have to physically touch it to make sure I did it correctly and it is syncing like it should. sigh
bognition 11y ago
Does anyone know what the privacy restrictions around your photos are? Does amazon reserve the right to scan/analyze the images? I'm becoming increasingly wary of freebies like this, especially ones that provide advertisers/retailers a detailed and intimate view into your life.
- ilikepi 11y ago
  The Cloud Drive terms[1] don't sound like they're particularly interested in the contents of your photos, however they are somewhat vague. Section 3.3 seems to have the meat of it: 3.3 Our Use of Your Files to Provide the Service. We may use, access, and retain Your Files in order to provide the Service to you and enforce the terms of the Agreement, and you give us all permissions we need to do so. These permissions include, for example, the rights to copy Your Files for backup purposes, modify Your Files to enable access in different formats, use information about Your Files to organize them on your behalf, and access Your Files to provide technical support. Amazon respects your privacy and Your Files are subject to the Amazon.com Privacy Notice located at www.amazon.com/privacy. [1]: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?ie=UTF8&nodeId=201376540 https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?ie=UTF...
  - 6stringmerc 11y ago
    Quite helpful. I think a part of note is "...and enforce the terms of the Agreement" as it might relate to content that is not permitted. Would be helpful to compare/contrast with any statements regarding uploading of copyright material not copyright of the account owner, which seems like the typical pretext for basic overview? Just musing here.
    - ilikepi 11y ago
      Yeah, I'd imagine third-party copyright enforcement would be the primary consideration there, though they also include the typical prohibitions of objectionable material. 1.2 Using Your Files with the Service. You may use the Service only to store, retrieve, manage, and access Your Files for personal, non-commercial purposes using the features and functionality we make available. You may not use the Service to store, transfer or distribute content of or on behalf of third parties, to operate your own file storage application or service, to operate a photography business or other commercial service, or to resell any part of the Service. You are solely responsible for Your Files and for complying with all applicable copyright and other laws, including import and export control laws and regulations, and with the terms of any licenses or agreements to which you are bound. You must ensure that Your Files are free from any malware, viruses, Trojan horses, spyware, worms, or other malicious or harmful code. 1.3 Sharing Your Files. The Service may provide features that allow you to share Your Files with others. You may only share Your Files in which you have all necessary copyright and other rights. If you share a file, anyone with access to that file may view and download copies of the file. You are solely responsible for how you share Your Files and who may access Your Files that you share. You may not share files (a) that contain defamatory, threatening, abusive, pornographic, or otherwise objectionable material, (b) that advocate bigotry, hatred, or illegal discrimination, or (c) if sharing those files violates any law, any intellectual property, publicity, privacy, or other right of others, or any license or other agreement by which you are bound.
Rygu 11y ago
Has anyone successfully backed up iPhone Live Photos on a photo storage service that's not iCloud?
tmaly 11y ago
Right now I use backblaze for $5 a month. This covers my photos and videos on OSX. I saw in another comment that backblaze is only one datacenter. If Amazon included video even if it was only 1 TB I would dump backblaze. I may still use the prime photos for my iphone as apple cannot backup the amount of photos I take to their cloud. Transferring them to the iMac for backblaze is a pain. If Prime Photos had a print service where we could do Christmas cards etc that would be even cooler.
- justicezyx 11y ago
  Amazon have 56$/year everything unlimited plan. It's cheaper than $5 a year, right?
- vitd 11y ago
  Why do you have to transfer your photos to the iMac for back blaze? They have an iOS client. [0] [0]https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/backblaze/id628638330?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/backblaze/id628638330?mt=8
  - aganders3 11y ago
    The Backblaze iOS client is for access/retrieval, not for backing up files from the iOS device.
DrFence 11y ago
I wish Google and or iOS would allow me to tag.
akurilin 11y ago
On that note, what's the most convenient way out there if you want to use a cloud service as an external drive to store most of your images in RAW format? Ideally you wouldn't have to keep them all on your local drive, only the ones you're working with. I know S3 would be a fit, but I'm thinking something equally cheap, but with a nicer web interface specific to photography and similar affordable pricing.
- asciimo 11y ago
  Amazon considers Canon, Nikon, and Sony RAW formats, as well as Adobe Digital Negatives, as "photos" in terms of unlimited storage. (https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201649930 https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...)
- Domenic_S 11y ago
  3 backups 2 formats 1 offsite Local computer has photos you're working with currently, move RAW + JPG to a Synology when you're done, set up a job to sync the synology with Amazon Photos.
abalone 11y ago
This is a deceptive HN post with a "vote-bait" title. There was no launch. This is a year old.
stephengoodwin 11y ago
Is this new? I've been using this for over a month now.
danso 11y ago
Anyone use this service as a backup of photos? I have several terabytes of photos (in RAW format), which is not a huge expense to throw onto Glacier...but if I could just toss them up in an album as a last-resort-yet-free backup...then I'd feel even better about still subscribing to Amazon Prime despite infrequently ordering physical products.

Amazon Prime Photos

79 points by wengzilla 11y ago

jkraker 11y ago

This was announced a couple months ago.

skool 11y ago

If they included unlimited video storage this would be more interesting. (This was announced November 4th)

aasdh 11y ago

I will pay you to do upvote. Reach me on Skyp: cobalmx

recycledair 11y ago

It's a free trials. It costs $11.99/year.

mey 11y ago
This detail is horribly hidden. It looks like it's 11.99/year for non-prime members. Free for prime members. Getting this from, go into your Amazon Cloud Drive, then click Manage Storage on the right side. Two plans listed, Unlimited Photos and Unlimited Everything.
- mey 11y ago
  Found this http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId=201480950 http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId=...
johnnymonster 11y ago
It's an add-on service for prime members not a trial. I'm not sure if there is an option for non-prime members. Edit: looks like it is 11.99 for non-prime members. Also the unlimited everything option looks pretty cool. Really trumps dropbox and google drive.

ck2 11y ago

I'm sure someone somewhere is working on code to break up large files into multiple images. $1/month for image hosting is dirt cheap though if you can do public url access to images.

alexandrerond 11y ago

Reminds me of Microsoft's unlimited storage adventure http://www.theverge.com/2015/11/3/9662414/microsoft-reduces-free-onedrive-storage-15-to-5-gb-removes-unlimited http://www.theverge.com/2015/11/3/9662414/microsoft-reduces-...

SyneRyder 11y ago
Bingo. And in years gone by Bitcasa did the same, starting with an unlimited plan and once people were locked in, increasing prices 10x (from $99 to $999): http://www.engadget.com/2013/11/19/bitcasa-infinite-cloud-storage-price-change/ http://www.engadget.com/2013/11/19/bitcasa-infinite-cloud-st...
- Veratyr 11y ago
  Bitcasa is even worse. Not only did they sell unlimited and retract it, they claim zero knowledge encryption without providing it, as the key is linked to the password which is used to access your account through the web interface. The sad thing is apparently they're partnered with larger companies like Samsung, Intel and Huawei, so their product is being spread to people who likely don't know any better.

aresant 11y ago

To clear up the pricing confusion: - It's FREE for Prime Members - It's $11.99 a year for non-prime members The other caveat is that it's unlimited for photos, but only 5gig of video.

oh_sigh 11y ago
Can I store my videos frame-by-frame as images?
- Osiris 11y ago
  All JPG images are free, so go for it.
- vagelim 11y ago
  ffmpeg -i input.mov -r 24 output_%06d.png
  - burningion 11y ago
    Great! Now embed audio into each of these pngs as a waveform at the bottom.
- wslh 11y ago
  There is another plan for unlimited video for $ 59.99: https://www.amazon.com/gp/drive/landing/everything/?ref_=cd_asin_photos_getue https://www.amazon.com/gp/drive/landing/everything/?ref_=cd_...
  - Numberwang 11y ago
    Still, no playback for 5+ min of video which makes it not usable for me.
copperx 11y ago
$11.99 a year is quite cheap. Although I have MUCH less than 100GB of images, so I think Google's $1.99/mo for 100GB is better so I can use the rest of the storage for something else.

wspeirs 11y ago

It's clear that the cost of storage is approaching $0, but it's surprising to me that the price of these company's services vary so much: - Box: $180/year for unlimited (https://www.box.com/pricing/ https://www.box.com/pricing/) - Google: $120/year for 1TB (https://support.google.com/drive/answer/2375123?hl=en https://support.google.com/drive/answer/2375123?hl=en) - Dropbox: $100/year for 1TB (https://www.dropbox.com/pro https://www.dropbox.com/pro) - Amazon: $60/year for unlimited (https://www.amazon.com/gp/drive/landing/everything/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/drive/landing/everything/) - Microsoft: $60/year for 1TB (https://products.office.com/en-us/business/compare-office-365-for-business-plans https://products.office.com/en-us/business/compare-office-36...) They all offer approximately the same service, but from cheapest to priciest is almost 3x. I wonder how much sand is left in the hourglass for companies like Box & Dropbox? Also, how much longer will Google keep their price at $120/year for 1TB when Amazon is half that for unlimited storage? Also, does your average Joe even care when you get 15GB for free from Google?

agildehaus 11y ago
Absolutely none of these are "unlimited" storage. It's simply overselling. Even the providers that are selling N terabytes for $Q are counting on a certain percentage of those users not utilizing that much. This is why the prices vary so wildly, because each provider is doing different math and hedging different bets.
- gist 11y ago
  No doubt also different things for each hidden in the TOS. This same thing happens with "unlimited" web hosting providers (godaddy in particular).
- kordless 11y ago
  > hedging different bets More specifically, they each have their own unique business model which they believe will perform best in the market. You can "oversell" future storage successfully if you know the usage growth rates.
Veratyr 11y ago

cmurf 11y ago

JPEG only? Or Raw/DNG too?

Veratyr 11y ago
They support RAW files: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201649930 https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=... This makes it superior to Google Photos for backup in my opinion. Amazon provides free (with Prime) backup with no limits, RAW support and no recompression. Google Photos provides it for free but with lossy compression and without the possibility of retaining the range of RAW.
- xur17 11y ago
  It definitely makes it superior to Google Photos for backup, but Google Photos is drastically superior for viewing your photos. Automatic face detection / grouping, and really good search functionality help a ton.

ausjke 11y ago

time to ditch flickr then? as I have the prime membership at amazon? wish I can import flickr into amazon somehow. on the other hand I hope they support client-side encryption so someone can only view the pictures after they're decrypted

ausjke 11y ago
how to define "picture", can I hide my files into some picture then upload it and essentially use amazon-picture-unlimited as an unlimited file storage?
- mxuribe 11y ago
  While I haven't read Amazon's terms of use as to whether this is ok from a policy perspective, most back-up services don't check for "files within pictures". In fact, the hiding of data within imagery is called Steganography: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography Although the intent with Steganography is (weak) cryptography, the method should work for your purposes; only way to know is to test it! Admittedly until you've tested this thoroughly, I would not RELY on this for anything other than a fun test. Enjoy! :-)
ghaff 11y ago
This isn't really the same as Flickr though. It's photo backup. For that, it may actually be better than flickr in that it apparently supports the major raw file formats including DNG. However, it doesn't seem to be designed for any sort of photo sharing (although you can access photos remotely yourself). Bottom line is that, if you're just using flickr for backup then, yes, something like this is probably a better match. On the other hand, if you use flickr as a photo sharing site and the backup is at least partially incidental, then I'd probably stay with flickr and maybe use both. I have a flickr Pro subscription but I don't really view it as a backup system although having an additional set of (JPEG) backups of my favorite photos is a nice side benefit.

remremz 11y ago

I just use Google Photos for backup which while is reduced in quality its enough for my needs. Best of all its unlimited storage and its free.

joesmo 11y ago

The risk of Amazon shutting down your account, even as a Prime member, is too high to justify investment in any of their cloud services or hardware. Even if they don't actually shut down your account and just send you threats based on fictional terms of service that you've never agreed to, as they did to me, I would never trust them with anything sensitive again. I wouldn't be surprised if they start shutting down AWS services in the future for arbitrary violations not stated in any terms of service. This kind of behavior should not have to be tolerated by loyal, paying customers, yet Amazon has been doing it continuously for many years.

ihodes 11y ago
Why did they threaten to shut down your account?
- kimcheekumquat 11y ago
  Probably doing something that violates TOS or something borderline illegal. I see cases like his all the time on various forums and they seems to be missing some important details...
  - joesmo 11y ago
    There's nothing illegal about returning defective products. In fact, there's nothing in the TOS about returning too many products or anything like that.
    - kimcheekumquat 11y ago
      Oh okay I see. I thought you meant you were using Amazon Web Services to do something or host something borderline illegal, which I have actually seen a couple times while working here.
- joesmo 11y ago
  Please see above comment.
11y ago

gtrubetskoy 11y ago

I wonder if you can use it to back up arbitrary files - if you take any file and prepend it with "GIF89a=\t0\t;;;;" it becomes a valid GIF.

bognition 11y ago
ha, I remember when people used Gmail to do this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GmailFS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GmailFS

frik 11y ago

Amazon nags me quite a bit and tries to upsale me to Prime on the Amazon website. Every single time I click "check out" and in several other places I get these Prime popovers or full page ads with a very small "No thanks" or "Cancel" link. There are now even normal non-Amazon products that are sold only to Prime members. Is this how Amazon.com cares about loyal 15+ year consumers? I DO NOT WANT PRIME, GOT IT? Not now, not tomorrow, not next months, never. Why should I pay a premium membership for a virtual shopping center?!? Are there any "Prime"-nag-screen blocker browser plugins?...

wpietri 11y ago
I had this problem with the Amazon Music app even though I already pay for Amazon Prime. Every time I opened it, it would be "Hey, want to join Prime Music?" And I would say no, because IDGAF. And then it would ask me a second time, as if it couldn't quite believe me. After months of this, I said yes just to get it to shut up, which meant that any attempt to listen to my music would it involve displaying lots of things that they could give me for free, none of which I wanted. Eventually I just stopped using the Amazon Music app. It amazes me how much large company product design becomes about what companies want the users to do, with so little attention paid to what users actually want. I already had to uninstall the Amazon app and block notifications from the Kindle app because they insisted on chirpily notifying me of exciting special offers. By which they meant their various attempts to get me to buy crap I don't want.
blhack 11y ago
I'm seriously curious why you don't want prime. Do you live in an area where it doesn't benefit you or something? If you are really ordering more than a few items a year for them, it makes total financial sense to get it for the shipping alone. The movies, photo storage, tv shows, music etc. are just icing on the cake.
- frik 11y ago
  What's so special about "saying no"? I have my principles, and companies better respect them. I got several downvotes for my comment, but in the end more upvotes. Btw. shipping is free for my check outs too. Maybe I just don't want and need their streaming services? Maybe I already use something that fits my needs? Maybe I live in an area where they tested Prime and therefor made the delivery time worse (from 2 days to 4-5 days)? Ask yourself: would you like to pay a membership fee for Walmart/etc and for shopping centers? Nevertheless, Amazon.com is first and foremost an digital shopping center. It's my right as a customer to say "no thanks", and Amazon should acknowledge my decision.

spilk 11y ago

Didn't they launch this last year? http://www.informationweek.com/cloud/cloud-storage/amazon-prime-gains-unlimited-photo-storage-with-caveats/d/d-id/1317235 http://www.informationweek.com/cloud/cloud-storage/amazon-pr...

zeeshanm 11y ago
I guess nobody paid attention last time. It's a classic trick to launch over and over again until someone cares to give two cents.
- dkrich 11y ago
  Well to be fair, I don't see anywhere in the page itself indicating that this is a new launch, just the HN title.
ctomaybe 11y ago
I was going to say... we were launching it just after I left the team last year!
gramakri 11y ago
Not 100% sure but I think the last time around it was announced as free with prime - https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/primephotos https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/primephotos ? This time around it looks like a standalone product.
joeblau 11y ago
Amazon relaunches the same products all the time. It's a soft launch until it gains traction or dies.
- cwh 11y ago
  nothing was relaunched, it's just a landing page. i'm not sure why this is on HN.
  - 11y ago

deleted 11y ago

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silveira 11y ago

Maybe this could be an alternative to Flickr for me. Unfortunately there is no Linux client, I hope there is an API.

AdmiralAsshat 11y ago

Anyone have any info on Amazon's security practices for their cloud/photo storage? I'm slightly more tempted to go with them to store my photos than Google, if only for the implicit contract that I'm paying them to be a Prime Member and hence paying in some way for the storage, so they should in theory be less likely to try to profit off of my photos...but I'm also still paranoid.

bognition 11y ago
I'd be surprised if they aren't just using a thin layer on top of S3 which is pretty solid. Historically amazon has a really good track record of keeping data secured.

jobu 11y ago

Are there any tools to upload the Photos library for Mac users? I tried the "Amazon Cloud Drive" app, but it's useless. Even when I drill down into the .photoslibrary package the Amazon syncing app gives a "File type error".

Corrado 11y ago
My thoughts exactly. The first company (besides Apple) to come up with a Photos plugin has my business. I'm currently using the Apple cloud product but it is sooo confusing it's almost not worth it. IMHO, Dropbox got this right. Simple to install, simple to configure, simple to use. Apple's solution is a confusing mess of Family members, devices, Apple iCloud accounts, etc. Every time I share something with my wife's iPad I have to physically touch it to make sure I did it correctly and it is syncing like it should. sigh

bognition 11y ago

Does anyone know what the privacy restrictions around your photos are? Does amazon reserve the right to scan/analyze the images? I'm becoming increasingly wary of freebies like this, especially ones that provide advertisers/retailers a detailed and intimate view into your life.

ilikepi 11y ago
The Cloud Drive terms[1] don't sound like they're particularly interested in the contents of your photos, however they are somewhat vague. Section 3.3 seems to have the meat of it: 3.3 Our Use of Your Files to Provide the Service. We may use, access, and retain Your Files in order to provide the Service to you and enforce the terms of the Agreement, and you give us all permissions we need to do so. These permissions include, for example, the rights to copy Your Files for backup purposes, modify Your Files to enable access in different formats, use information about Your Files to organize them on your behalf, and access Your Files to provide technical support. Amazon respects your privacy and Your Files are subject to the Amazon.com Privacy Notice located at www.amazon.com/privacy. [1]: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?ie=UTF8&nodeId=201376540 https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?ie=UTF...
- 6stringmerc 11y ago
  Quite helpful. I think a part of note is "...and enforce the terms of the Agreement" as it might relate to content that is not permitted. Would be helpful to compare/contrast with any statements regarding uploading of copyright material not copyright of the account owner, which seems like the typical pretext for basic overview? Just musing here.
  - ilikepi 11y ago
    Yeah, I'd imagine third-party copyright enforcement would be the primary consideration there, though they also include the typical prohibitions of objectionable material. 1.2 Using Your Files with the Service. You may use the Service only to store, retrieve, manage, and access Your Files for personal, non-commercial purposes using the features and functionality we make available. You may not use the Service to store, transfer or distribute content of or on behalf of third parties, to operate your own file storage application or service, to operate a photography business or other commercial service, or to resell any part of the Service. You are solely responsible for Your Files and for complying with all applicable copyright and other laws, including import and export control laws and regulations, and with the terms of any licenses or agreements to which you are bound. You must ensure that Your Files are free from any malware, viruses, Trojan horses, spyware, worms, or other malicious or harmful code. 1.3 Sharing Your Files. The Service may provide features that allow you to share Your Files with others. You may only share Your Files in which you have all necessary copyright and other rights. If you share a file, anyone with access to that file may view and download copies of the file. You are solely responsible for how you share Your Files and who may access Your Files that you share. You may not share files (a) that contain defamatory, threatening, abusive, pornographic, or otherwise objectionable material, (b) that advocate bigotry, hatred, or illegal discrimination, or (c) if sharing those files violates any law, any intellectual property, publicity, privacy, or other right of others, or any license or other agreement by which you are bound.

Rygu 11y ago

Has anyone successfully backed up iPhone Live Photos on a photo storage service that's not iCloud?

tmaly 11y ago

Right now I use backblaze for $5 a month. This covers my photos and videos on OSX. I saw in another comment that backblaze is only one datacenter. If Amazon included video even if it was only 1 TB I would dump backblaze. I may still use the prime photos for my iphone as apple cannot backup the amount of photos I take to their cloud. Transferring them to the iMac for backblaze is a pain. If Prime Photos had a print service where we could do Christmas cards etc that would be even cooler.

justicezyx 11y ago
Amazon have 56$/year everything unlimited plan. It's cheaper than $5 a year, right?
vitd 11y ago
Why do you have to transfer your photos to the iMac for back blaze? They have an iOS client. [0] [0]https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/backblaze/id628638330?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/backblaze/id628638330?mt=8
- aganders3 11y ago
  The Backblaze iOS client is for access/retrieval, not for backing up files from the iOS device.

DrFence 11y ago

I wish Google and or iOS would allow me to tag.

akurilin 11y ago

On that note, what's the most convenient way out there if you want to use a cloud service as an external drive to store most of your images in RAW format? Ideally you wouldn't have to keep them all on your local drive, only the ones you're working with. I know S3 would be a fit, but I'm thinking something equally cheap, but with a nicer web interface specific to photography and similar affordable pricing.

asciimo 11y ago
Amazon considers Canon, Nikon, and Sony RAW formats, as well as Adobe Digital Negatives, as "photos" in terms of unlimited storage. (https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201649930 https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...)
Domenic_S 11y ago
3 backups 2 formats 1 offsite Local computer has photos you're working with currently, move RAW + JPG to a Synology when you're done, set up a job to sync the synology with Amazon Photos.

abalone 11y ago

This is a deceptive HN post with a "vote-bait" title. There was no launch. This is a year old.

stephengoodwin 11y ago

Is this new? I've been using this for over a month now.

danso 11y ago

Anyone use this service as a backup of photos? I have several terabytes of photos (in RAW format), which is not a huge expense to throw onto Glacier...but if I could just toss them up in an album as a last-resort-yet-free backup...then I'd feel even better about still subscribing to Amazon Prime despite infrequently ordering physical products.