7 ms·

Out of all the 1s and 0s that I want backed up in the cloud for an indefinite period of time, nothing is as irreplaceable as a photo/video that will make me smi

Out of all the 1s and 0s that I want backed up in the cloud for an indefinite period of time, nothing is as irreplaceable as a photo/video that will make me smile 2/5/10/20+ years from now. I'd argue that the threat of "X is shutting down" or worse, "X has shut down" but it landed in my spam 3 months ago is worse than any benefits that a non-FAANG co can offer me. At least with keeping backups on icloud/Gphotos, I know that both co's would kill those services abrubtly as their last dying wish.

hjuutilainen 6y ago
This is exactly the reason I recently chose to move all my photos to Adobe Creative Cloud and also keep them backed up to multiple separate locations. Almost all other data I can recreate (even if it took years) but the memories I have through photos and videos are irreplaceable.
- awestroke 6y ago
  How do you back them up to separate locations? Do you use some kind of adobe application or script to sync? If you delete something from the Adobe cloud, is it deleted from your backups too? What do you use for sharing albums with friends? What do you use for displaying photos on a TV?
  - hjuutilainen 6y ago
    I have one computer which always has all originals locally available. That computer is backed up with borg to three separate borg repos (1 local, 2 remote). I use iCloud photos for sharing with friends and family.
hyko 6y ago
Yes and no. Backups that you control (physically, technically, and legally) are the only complete mitigation against someone else losing your digital memories. That applies to a FAANG as well as a startup, although startups are far more likely to just flame out as you say.
- genidoi 6y ago
  I didn't mean to imply that FAANG cloud storage completely mitigates the risk of memories being lost or debate about how to minimize the likelihood through means such as owning the hard drive or inscribing the data on titanium disks stored in vacuum-sealed cannisters. This is just about choosing a cloud storage provider that I can feel reasonably confident will still have my photos backed up on any given day for the foreseeable future.
  - hyko 6y ago
    Yes, I agree with you that given the choice between some random company and a FAANG for cloud storage, choose the FAANG.
    - brnt 6y ago
      I dont know, I wouldn't recommend using Facebook or Instagram as backup, and even services like Microsofts One drive have been known to dissapear files. A 'dumb' WebDAV service makes it easy to move data in and out, enabling hedging. Or a company like Backblaze, which has no other monetisation scheme and thus no interest other than keeping your bits safe. I think you can make much better choices than FAANG or a random company, and I advise anyone to go with that better choice.
deanclatworthy 6y ago
Indeed. This is my fear. Let's see where Stingle is in 5 years time, but I'm not going to rely on and be inconvenienced by a shutdown of another startup in this space. Photos/Videos are priceless.
- pettycashstash2 6y ago
  I remember storing photos on fotki.com some years ago based on a recommendation. From a colleague. Functionally it was a good platform. After some years I wanted to download and they wanted to charge me $500 for access to my files. I ended up relying on local backup but the experience gave me chills that my photos were being held hostage.
  - awiesenhofer 6y ago
    Did you report them? Seems quite illegal, at least definitly against eu customer rights iirc to not list that charge anywhere and deny you your personal data.
    - pettycashstash2 6y ago
      No I did not. This was some years back before gdpr . They did not deny data, simply asked premium for my originals. I deleted account and moved on, since I had local copies, which took some time to locate among all the hard drives, but I did locate eventually.
leokennis 6y ago
For any iOS users that want a self hosted photo backup I can very much recommend https://www.photosync-app.com/ https://www.photosync-app.com/. I set it up once years ago, never open it and still it silently backups any photo and video (original and edited) I take to WebDAV and a B2 bucket in the background, sorted in subfolders for every month.
- codegladiator 6y ago
  How do you talk to webdav ? what client ?
  - leokennis 6y ago
    PhotoSync talks to WebDAV natively. When I want to access those backups from my Mac I use Forklift (https://binarynights.com/ https://binarynights.com/) but even Finder and Windows Explorer can browse WebDAV storage natively.
- gingerlime 6y ago
  another +1 for photosync. bought it a few years ago now and it just works in the background reliably ever since. (backing up mine and my wife’s iphone photos to a synology NAS) It’s only good for backups though. There’s no way to browse/share memories so we reluctantly still also use Amazon photos...
  - Heliosmaster 6y ago
    Why don't you use DS Photo from Synology? It's a bit dated but you can have auto upload of pictures and browse PhotoStation. We do, at home
    - gingerlime 6y ago
      Thanks. Yeah I might give it a try, but... 1. It’s still a kind of vendor lock-in that I’m not crazy about 2. I’m generally underwhelmed by the synology apps (eg music) and prefer docker based foss alternatives when available 3. I was reading somewhere about DS moments (after another mention on this post) and I think they require a special folder structure?
Roritharr 6y ago
Same here, but what is the best way to backup my GPhotos Library for the inevitable google account closure?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- olah_1 6y ago
  I was recommended the github project “timeliner”. I’m open to other ideas though!
  - mceachen 6y ago
    Both timeliner and rclone (which are both great projects) are at the mercy of the Google photos api, which removes GPS metadata and elides the majority of other tags. Even something as critical as the captured-at time can get modified from the original. (Source: my personal experience with Google Pixel "original quality" backups, and providing customer support to several hundred PhotoStructure beta testers).
- notoverthere 6y ago
  I'd recommend you check out rclone. It's a command line tool, so you'd need to be comfortable in the terminal. https://rclone.org/ https://rclone.org/ It comes with an adapter for Google Photos, so you can use it to download / backup photos and videos in your library. Note: there are some limitations to this approach – namely that rclone won't be able to download your original image files, even if you uploaded with 'original' quality. These limitations are documented on the rclone website: https://rclone.org/googlephotos/ https://rclone.org/googlephotos/
- pnutjam 6y ago
  I use this for photos: https://github.com/dtylman/gitmoo-goog https://github.com/dtylman/gitmoo-goog I have it run via a cron job and backup files to a local folder. I also use this to backup my gmail account: https://github.com/jay0lee/got-your-back https://github.com/jay0lee/got-your-back I store these on a local OpenSuse box I use as a NAS. It has a local drive, with a 2nd drive that is mounted and synced to weekly. Then the important stuff is rsynced offsite to a cloud server, rsync for pictures and other various "family" stuff. Borg for home drives with more private information. That internal drive I backup to, runs btrfs. After backup is complete. I take a snapshot and keep a monthly one going back at least a year.
llampx 6y ago
I wish I could agree, but its more likely that Google et al will either phase out the service or replace it with an inferior one. For example, a while ago Google stopped the ability to download full quality originals from the Google Photos service. Since then I have to plug in my phone every once in a while to download the originals to my computer and back them up manually. I also remember when I left Facebook and asked for an archive of my photos, I got 800x600 images when I had uploaded much higher resolution ones. Service degradation is actually more common in FAANG because they have a massive moat and rely on the fact that 90% of their customers don't know their 1's from their 0's.
- tpolzer 6y ago
  What's up with this meme that Google stopped full quality downloads? I've seen it mentioned in several places, but it doesn't seem true? I compared checksums of (recently uploaded) 1) original source images 2) result of clicking "Download" in the Web UI 3) what was contained in my most recent Takeout And they all match. There might be issues with the API (didn't check), but that API is VERY limited anyway.
  - olah_1 6y ago
    Takeout no longer includes actual image files. Either that or it broke for me. Someone recommended the github project called Timeliner to help me get the photos though. I just haven’t tried it yet.
    - tpolzer 6y ago
      Did you try again? Takeout is pretty flaky sometimes... especially with large libraries.
      - olah_1 6y ago
        Yeah the files were like html files that had image links inside them if I remember correctly. But even those links didn’t work right. This is because of a change they made. I was absolutely distraught tbh. The feeling of being at the mercy of google is a horrible feeling. Especially when there is zero support or assistance.
orbital-decay 6y ago
I ended up simply printing my photos. This also had a positive effect on the quality - you tend to select the better ones when you are limited. It's not just about third-party storage - I have a picture of my great-grandmother and her parents from 1898 when she was 3 in my photo album. It survived several wars, regimes, and revolutions. No current digital tech in general can provide this kind of longevity, you have to actively watch the media yourself and transfer it when it's about to expire. (which I also do for the rest, of course)
- bergstromm466 6y ago
  > I ended up simply printing my photos. Your house burns down, now what? > I have a picture of my great-grandmother and her parents from 1898 when she was 3 in my photo album. It survived several wars, regimes, and revolutions. No current digital tech in general can provide this kind of longevity That's because digital storage didn't exist then... Now it's easier and cheaper to store media than ever before Maybe I'm missing something in your argument, but to me it sounds naive? Or maybe you're just in a nostalgic mood!
  - beagle3 6y ago
    > That's because digital storage didn't exist then... Now it's easier and cheaper to store media than ever before It may seem that way, but it's not as simple. A digitized history project in the UK made this assumption, and later worked really hard to get back at the data, [0] is a long description, the Wikipedia entry on the BBC Domesday book doesn't go into all the details. You might believe we've learned a lesson since then, but I don't. DRM formats are creeping into everything. Right now it seems JPEGs will be usable forever, and that may be; But cultural artificats - games and videos - are already becoming hard to preserve; People only care about convenience, and I suspect a popular 3D-or-lightfield-or-something-format in the future will be similarly hard to preserve 20 years later. Print media has two main advantages: It requires no equipment/software/license/electricity to use; and treated properly, it has been shown to last hundreds of years. I have a couple of 20-year-old hard drives that are still mostly readable (12 bad sectors so far), and that's considered a miracle. Usenet history is disappearing, even though it doesn't take a lot of space - because it isn't in anyone's economic interest to keep it - and the same will happen to free cloud storage sooner or later. [0] http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/tna/ http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/tna/
vin047 6y ago
I agree with your sentiment, but this actually highlights just how necessary it is to not solely trust the large players with our personal memories; by relying on a single, walled garden to play host for our memories, we're increasing our dependence on the larger players. Data privacy concerns aside, what happens if they decide to change the terms of service in a way thats unappealing, or the product itself? Or even lock us out of their service? Far better IMO to not rely on a single provider, especially in the case of backups.
WhyNotHugo 6y ago
Exporting photos from GPhotos is quite a pain. A takeout request can take "a few weeks", during which you just can't download them. Google has also had too many cases of banning accounts with no recourse. I'd be scared for it to be my only backup of something so treasured.

hjuutilainen 6y ago

This is exactly the reason I recently chose to move all my photos to Adobe Creative Cloud and also keep them backed up to multiple separate locations. Almost all other data I can recreate (even if it took years) but the memories I have through photos and videos are irreplaceable.

awestroke 6y ago
How do you back them up to separate locations? Do you use some kind of adobe application or script to sync? If you delete something from the Adobe cloud, is it deleted from your backups too? What do you use for sharing albums with friends? What do you use for displaying photos on a TV?
- hjuutilainen 6y ago
  I have one computer which always has all originals locally available. That computer is backed up with borg to three separate borg repos (1 local, 2 remote). I use iCloud photos for sharing with friends and family.

hyko 6y ago

Yes and no. Backups that you control (physically, technically, and legally) are the only complete mitigation against someone else losing your digital memories. That applies to a FAANG as well as a startup, although startups are far more likely to just flame out as you say.

genidoi 6y ago
I didn't mean to imply that FAANG cloud storage completely mitigates the risk of memories being lost or debate about how to minimize the likelihood through means such as owning the hard drive or inscribing the data on titanium disks stored in vacuum-sealed cannisters. This is just about choosing a cloud storage provider that I can feel reasonably confident will still have my photos backed up on any given day for the foreseeable future.
- hyko 6y ago
  Yes, I agree with you that given the choice between some random company and a FAANG for cloud storage, choose the FAANG.
  - brnt 6y ago
    I dont know, I wouldn't recommend using Facebook or Instagram as backup, and even services like Microsofts One drive have been known to dissapear files. A 'dumb' WebDAV service makes it easy to move data in and out, enabling hedging. Or a company like Backblaze, which has no other monetisation scheme and thus no interest other than keeping your bits safe. I think you can make much better choices than FAANG or a random company, and I advise anyone to go with that better choice.

deanclatworthy 6y ago

Indeed. This is my fear. Let's see where Stingle is in 5 years time, but I'm not going to rely on and be inconvenienced by a shutdown of another startup in this space. Photos/Videos are priceless.

pettycashstash2 6y ago
I remember storing photos on fotki.com some years ago based on a recommendation. From a colleague. Functionally it was a good platform. After some years I wanted to download and they wanted to charge me $500 for access to my files. I ended up relying on local backup but the experience gave me chills that my photos were being held hostage.
- awiesenhofer 6y ago
  Did you report them? Seems quite illegal, at least definitly against eu customer rights iirc to not list that charge anywhere and deny you your personal data.
  - pettycashstash2 6y ago
    No I did not. This was some years back before gdpr . They did not deny data, simply asked premium for my originals. I deleted account and moved on, since I had local copies, which took some time to locate among all the hard drives, but I did locate eventually.

leokennis 6y ago

For any iOS users that want a self hosted photo backup I can very much recommend https://www.photosync-app.com/ https://www.photosync-app.com/. I set it up once years ago, never open it and still it silently backups any photo and video (original and edited) I take to WebDAV and a B2 bucket in the background, sorted in subfolders for every month.

codegladiator 6y ago
How do you talk to webdav ? what client ?
- leokennis 6y ago
  PhotoSync talks to WebDAV natively. When I want to access those backups from my Mac I use Forklift (https://binarynights.com/ https://binarynights.com/) but even Finder and Windows Explorer can browse WebDAV storage natively.
gingerlime 6y ago
another +1 for photosync. bought it a few years ago now and it just works in the background reliably ever since. (backing up mine and my wife’s iphone photos to a synology NAS) It’s only good for backups though. There’s no way to browse/share memories so we reluctantly still also use Amazon photos...
- Heliosmaster 6y ago
  Why don't you use DS Photo from Synology? It's a bit dated but you can have auto upload of pictures and browse PhotoStation. We do, at home
  - gingerlime 6y ago
    Thanks. Yeah I might give it a try, but... 1. It’s still a kind of vendor lock-in that I’m not crazy about 2. I’m generally underwhelmed by the synology apps (eg music) and prefer docker based foss alternatives when available 3. I was reading somewhere about DS moments (after another mention on this post) and I think they require a special folder structure?

Roritharr 6y ago

Same here, but what is the best way to backup my GPhotos Library for the inevitable google account closure?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
olah_1 6y ago
I was recommended the github project “timeliner”. I’m open to other ideas though!
- mceachen 6y ago
  Both timeliner and rclone (which are both great projects) are at the mercy of the Google photos api, which removes GPS metadata and elides the majority of other tags. Even something as critical as the captured-at time can get modified from the original. (Source: my personal experience with Google Pixel "original quality" backups, and providing customer support to several hundred PhotoStructure beta testers).
notoverthere 6y ago
I'd recommend you check out rclone. It's a command line tool, so you'd need to be comfortable in the terminal. https://rclone.org/ https://rclone.org/ It comes with an adapter for Google Photos, so you can use it to download / backup photos and videos in your library. Note: there are some limitations to this approach – namely that rclone won't be able to download your original image files, even if you uploaded with 'original' quality. These limitations are documented on the rclone website: https://rclone.org/googlephotos/ https://rclone.org/googlephotos/
pnutjam 6y ago
I use this for photos: https://github.com/dtylman/gitmoo-goog https://github.com/dtylman/gitmoo-goog I have it run via a cron job and backup files to a local folder. I also use this to backup my gmail account: https://github.com/jay0lee/got-your-back https://github.com/jay0lee/got-your-back I store these on a local OpenSuse box I use as a NAS. It has a local drive, with a 2nd drive that is mounted and synced to weekly. Then the important stuff is rsynced offsite to a cloud server, rsync for pictures and other various "family" stuff. Borg for home drives with more private information. That internal drive I backup to, runs btrfs. After backup is complete. I take a snapshot and keep a monthly one going back at least a year.

llampx 6y ago

I wish I could agree, but its more likely that Google et al will either phase out the service or replace it with an inferior one. For example, a while ago Google stopped the ability to download full quality originals from the Google Photos service. Since then I have to plug in my phone every once in a while to download the originals to my computer and back them up manually. I also remember when I left Facebook and asked for an archive of my photos, I got 800x600 images when I had uploaded much higher resolution ones. Service degradation is actually more common in FAANG because they have a massive moat and rely on the fact that 90% of their customers don't know their 1's from their 0's.

tpolzer 6y ago
What's up with this meme that Google stopped full quality downloads? I've seen it mentioned in several places, but it doesn't seem true? I compared checksums of (recently uploaded) 1) original source images 2) result of clicking "Download" in the Web UI 3) what was contained in my most recent Takeout And they all match. There might be issues with the API (didn't check), but that API is VERY limited anyway.
- olah_1 6y ago
  Takeout no longer includes actual image files. Either that or it broke for me. Someone recommended the github project called Timeliner to help me get the photos though. I just haven’t tried it yet.
  - tpolzer 6y ago
    Did you try again? Takeout is pretty flaky sometimes... especially with large libraries.
    - olah_1 6y ago
      Yeah the files were like html files that had image links inside them if I remember correctly. But even those links didn’t work right. This is because of a change they made. I was absolutely distraught tbh. The feeling of being at the mercy of google is a horrible feeling. Especially when there is zero support or assistance.

orbital-decay 6y ago

I ended up simply printing my photos. This also had a positive effect on the quality - you tend to select the better ones when you are limited. It's not just about third-party storage - I have a picture of my great-grandmother and her parents from 1898 when she was 3 in my photo album. It survived several wars, regimes, and revolutions. No current digital tech in general can provide this kind of longevity, you have to actively watch the media yourself and transfer it when it's about to expire. (which I also do for the rest, of course)

bergstromm466 6y ago
> I ended up simply printing my photos. Your house burns down, now what? > I have a picture of my great-grandmother and her parents from 1898 when she was 3 in my photo album. It survived several wars, regimes, and revolutions. No current digital tech in general can provide this kind of longevity That's because digital storage didn't exist then... Now it's easier and cheaper to store media than ever before Maybe I'm missing something in your argument, but to me it sounds naive? Or maybe you're just in a nostalgic mood!
- beagle3 6y ago
  > That's because digital storage didn't exist then... Now it's easier and cheaper to store media than ever before It may seem that way, but it's not as simple. A digitized history project in the UK made this assumption, and later worked really hard to get back at the data, [0] is a long description, the Wikipedia entry on the BBC Domesday book doesn't go into all the details. You might believe we've learned a lesson since then, but I don't. DRM formats are creeping into everything. Right now it seems JPEGs will be usable forever, and that may be; But cultural artificats - games and videos - are already becoming hard to preserve; People only care about convenience, and I suspect a popular 3D-or-lightfield-or-something-format in the future will be similarly hard to preserve 20 years later. Print media has two main advantages: It requires no equipment/software/license/electricity to use; and treated properly, it has been shown to last hundreds of years. I have a couple of 20-year-old hard drives that are still mostly readable (12 bad sectors so far), and that's considered a miracle. Usenet history is disappearing, even though it doesn't take a lot of space - because it isn't in anyone's economic interest to keep it - and the same will happen to free cloud storage sooner or later. [0] http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/tna/ http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/36/tna/

vin047 6y ago

I agree with your sentiment, but this actually highlights just how necessary it is to not solely trust the large players with our personal memories; by relying on a single, walled garden to play host for our memories, we're increasing our dependence on the larger players. Data privacy concerns aside, what happens if they decide to change the terms of service in a way thats unappealing, or the product itself? Or even lock us out of their service? Far better IMO to not rely on a single provider, especially in the case of backups.

WhyNotHugo 6y ago

Exporting photos from GPhotos is quite a pain. A takeout request can take "a few weeks", during which you just can't download them. Google has also had too many cases of banning accounts with no recourse. I'd be scared for it to be my only backup of something so treasured.