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Just give us a ‘download all’ button with the ability to resume in the event of a failure. RSync has been around for a long time why reinvent the wheel for ever

Just give us a ‘download all’ button with the ability to resume in the event of a failure. RSync has been around for a long time why reinvent the wheel for every different service. Welcome to Modern tech - constantly reinventing (square) wheel

fartcannon 6y ago
But if I don't pretend your photos live in an ephemeral 'cloud', instead of where they really are - on my server, how can I trick you into letting me hide them behind a worse-than-even-just-using-FTP webpage. Walled Gardens Must Die.
luplex 6y ago
GDPR gives you this button. You can do a full data request. This was introduced for exactly this usecase, to make it possible to switch service providers. Now only Google needs to be able to read Apple's format.
- safog 6y ago
  Pretty sure even if Google doesn't support it explicitly, you'll have open source tools that can download + re-upload to Google.
  - lupire 6y ago
    That assumes Google provides API and authorizes the access, or else you're stuck scraping complex web apps with a Chrome extension. Custom 3rd party software is usually banned from a consumer cloud API for security reasons.
    - safog 6y ago
      I'd say it's pretty common with cloud providers actually. Bring in data? (Spotify playlists, Photos, Contacts etc. etc.) come on in, we have great APIs. Want to take your data out? File a GDPR request and get it in some opaque format. No incentive for Google to explicitly refuse photos from Apple for example.
kall 6y ago
I would also like this button, but I would not be surprised if a good chunk of users have an icloud photo library so large that none of their apple devices could fit it in it's (underspeced) storage.
- ProAm 6y ago
  Just upgrade the SSD
- dkonofalski 6y ago
  What an ignorant thing to say. You pretend like external hard drives don't exist.
  - kall 6y ago
    No, i didn‘t. I just pointed out that a full download und upload of a ~500 GB library is not a feasable task for many average users. I‘m also not sure you can even download straight to external storage with iOS safari.
LeoPanthera 6y ago
This exists if you have a Mac. Set Photos to "Download Originals" in the settings and every photo will be downloaded to the "originals" directory in your photo library bundle.
- goblin89 6y ago
  If you want to get your photos out of iCloud but not using Photos, there’s a neat cross-platform Python CLI tool called icloudpd[0]. It uses iCloud API, supports 2FA, and has a variety of options to control what’s downloaded (e.g., by album). It helped me free up iCloud storage without filling up my SSD (which is what would’ve happened if I synced the whole library using Photos). I pointed icloudpd to one massive album with random Filmic footage, which I then transferred to external storage. Download took multiple runs due to size and network interruptions, thankfully the tool avoids redownloading already completed items. [0] https://github.com/icloud-photos-downloader/icloud_photos_downloader https://github.com/icloud-photos-downloader/icloud_photos_do...
systemvoltage 6y ago
Rsync, the command line even, is familiar to vanishingly small slice of the Apple user base. It’s amazing how out of touch developers on HN are from the average Apple user. Completely, utterly, impossibly out of touch with reality. Try to imagine proposing a project like this to the internal teams at Apple and being asked “Who is this for!?”
- joncrane 6y ago
  They don't have to make everyone type in `rsync -aBc foo bar` they just need to expose it in a way that rsync can work with it. Then Apple themselves and developers in the ecosystem can create nice GUIs for the "typical Apple user."
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - systemvoltage 6y ago
    Then why do we care what runs behind the GUI? that's Apple's business. Can you imagine being the responsible engineer developing this capability and having the burden of a 2 trillion dollar company's reputation if something happens and photos of millions of people are leaked!? This is what I mean by how people are out of touch with reality. Any fuckups would destroy Apple forever. They're not going to listen to some armchair rsync bandit.
    - upbeat_general 6y ago
      I agree that lots of HN is out of touch but rsync is a very robust and widely used tool. Furthermore, i don’t see the privacy implications as it’s a client side tool so while it could fuck up downloading I don’t see how it could leak photos. If it were to break, it would just be another piece of buggy apple software of which there are many.
      - rukshn 6y ago
        Jumping on to discussion here, I'm an HN user and I know somewhat tech. Maybe not as good as a FAANG engineer here, but still I can call myself above average when it comes to other regular Apple users. Even I haven't used rsync in my life, and I can guarantee that regular users don't even know what rsync even means. They only need a place to backup their photos, and a way to easily transfer them between services, which apple provides.
foobiekr 6y ago
Well... In the end, you probably do want to back things up in a way that detaches the photos from iCloud sync issues. The best solution I have found is to use Photos on the Mac to pull down all of your photos and then the osxphotos python project to export them with full metadata and tagging to the directory of your choice which you back up using other means.
Black101 6y ago
They would loose control if they allowed you to use modern tools that work well

fartcannon 6y ago

But if I don't pretend your photos live in an ephemeral 'cloud', instead of where they really are - on my server, how can I trick you into letting me hide them behind a worse-than-even-just-using-FTP webpage. Walled Gardens Must Die.

luplex 6y ago

GDPR gives you this button. You can do a full data request. This was introduced for exactly this usecase, to make it possible to switch service providers. Now only Google needs to be able to read Apple's format.

safog 6y ago
Pretty sure even if Google doesn't support it explicitly, you'll have open source tools that can download + re-upload to Google.
- lupire 6y ago
  That assumes Google provides API and authorizes the access, or else you're stuck scraping complex web apps with a Chrome extension. Custom 3rd party software is usually banned from a consumer cloud API for security reasons.
  - safog 6y ago
    I'd say it's pretty common with cloud providers actually. Bring in data? (Spotify playlists, Photos, Contacts etc. etc.) come on in, we have great APIs. Want to take your data out? File a GDPR request and get it in some opaque format. No incentive for Google to explicitly refuse photos from Apple for example.

kall 6y ago

I would also like this button, but I would not be surprised if a good chunk of users have an icloud photo library so large that none of their apple devices could fit it in it's (underspeced) storage.

ProAm 6y ago
Just upgrade the SSD
dkonofalski 6y ago
What an ignorant thing to say. You pretend like external hard drives don't exist.
- kall 6y ago
  No, i didn‘t. I just pointed out that a full download und upload of a ~500 GB library is not a feasable task for many average users. I‘m also not sure you can even download straight to external storage with iOS safari.

LeoPanthera 6y ago

This exists if you have a Mac. Set Photos to "Download Originals" in the settings and every photo will be downloaded to the "originals" directory in your photo library bundle.

goblin89 6y ago
If you want to get your photos out of iCloud but not using Photos, there’s a neat cross-platform Python CLI tool called icloudpd[0]. It uses iCloud API, supports 2FA, and has a variety of options to control what’s downloaded (e.g., by album). It helped me free up iCloud storage without filling up my SSD (which is what would’ve happened if I synced the whole library using Photos). I pointed icloudpd to one massive album with random Filmic footage, which I then transferred to external storage. Download took multiple runs due to size and network interruptions, thankfully the tool avoids redownloading already completed items. [0] https://github.com/icloud-photos-downloader/icloud_photos_downloader https://github.com/icloud-photos-downloader/icloud_photos_do...

systemvoltage 6y ago

Rsync, the command line even, is familiar to vanishingly small slice of the Apple user base. It’s amazing how out of touch developers on HN are from the average Apple user. Completely, utterly, impossibly out of touch with reality. Try to imagine proposing a project like this to the internal teams at Apple and being asked “Who is this for!?”

joncrane 6y ago
They don't have to make everyone type in `rsync -aBc foo bar` they just need to expose it in a way that rsync can work with it. Then Apple themselves and developers in the ecosystem can create nice GUIs for the "typical Apple user."
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- systemvoltage 6y ago
  Then why do we care what runs behind the GUI? that's Apple's business. Can you imagine being the responsible engineer developing this capability and having the burden of a 2 trillion dollar company's reputation if something happens and photos of millions of people are leaked!? This is what I mean by how people are out of touch with reality. Any fuckups would destroy Apple forever. They're not going to listen to some armchair rsync bandit.
  - upbeat_general 6y ago
    I agree that lots of HN is out of touch but rsync is a very robust and widely used tool. Furthermore, i don’t see the privacy implications as it’s a client side tool so while it could fuck up downloading I don’t see how it could leak photos. If it were to break, it would just be another piece of buggy apple software of which there are many.
    - rukshn 6y ago
      Jumping on to discussion here, I'm an HN user and I know somewhat tech. Maybe not as good as a FAANG engineer here, but still I can call myself above average when it comes to other regular Apple users. Even I haven't used rsync in my life, and I can guarantee that regular users don't even know what rsync even means. They only need a place to backup their photos, and a way to easily transfer them between services, which apple provides.

foobiekr 6y ago

Well... In the end, you probably do want to back things up in a way that detaches the photos from iCloud sync issues. The best solution I have found is to use Photos on the Mac to pull down all of your photos and then the osxphotos python project to export them with full metadata and tagging to the directory of your choice which you back up using other means.

Black101 6y ago

They would loose control if they allowed you to use modern tools that work well