6 ms·

Photobox – Free Open Source Google Photos Clone

92 points by colbyfayock 2y ago

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
turnsout 2y ago
Heads up: depends on an account at Cloudinary
aidenn0 2y ago
Unless Cloudinary is open-source (hadn't heard of it before, a quick browse of their site makes me think it isn't) then calling this a Free/Open Source project is somewhat questionable, since it leverages Cloudinary for a lot of what it does.
- type0 2y ago
  Immich is self hosted and open source
  - figmert 2y ago
    Or if you're in the nextcloud ecosystem, you can use Memories
  - lenova 2y ago
    +1 for Immich, it's been cool watching their development journey on /r/selfhosted the last year or so: https://github.com/immich-app/immich https://github.com/immich-app/immich
  - selcuka 2y ago
    My only gripe with Immich is it renames the files to UUIDs, and stores them in its own directory structure. This works ok if you are only backing up images from your phone as file names don't make sense anyway, but if you have existing backups it makes it harder to sync them. I am planning to use NextCloud for the sync, as I like its YEAR/MONTH/FILE structure, and configuring it as an external library in Immich. I could also use NextCloud Memories, but Immich UI is nicer, and its face/object recognition model is better.
    - em-bee 2y ago
      copying and renaming files would be an immediate fail criteria. there is no way that i am going to let it copy and rename 1TB of photos. but you say it can also use external libraries? so it does not copy those?
      - selcuka 2y ago
        > but you say it can also use external libraries? so it does not copy those? Yes, it only renames files automatically sync'd from your phone. My understanding is it creates a separate metadata file for each external file, but doesn't touch the actual files in an external library.
    - loughnane 2y ago
      I’ve been playing with it the last week and there’s an option to load “external libraries” as read only. It seems to work nice for my existing photos.
      - benmccann 2y ago
        External libraries are no longer readonly in the latest release as many users wanted to be able to delete photos in external libraries, but you can mount the Docker volume containing your external library as readonly if the readonly aspect is important to you.
        loughnane 2y ago
        Yeah, saw that note earlier in the week. I have it set to read-only through docker for now, but I like the idea of being able to edit metadata. We'll see.
        falchy 2y ago
        Unless you explicitly want write, I'd leave it at read-only anyway since they had a (very, very quickly corrected) bug that could result in data loss for external libraries not mounted as read-only this last week.
- colbyfayock 2y ago
  it's not uncommon for Open Source projects to rely on non OSS services. the project itself is Open Source which is where the designation comes from as far as free, it's absolutely free to spin up. it does require registration (like any other service), but Cloudinary has a generous free tier. it was made pretty clear on the website and repository it relied on that service just for transparency, i work at Cloudinary, but I stand by the above whether it was Cloudinary or another service
xnx 2y ago
Happy to see any open source project, but this seems very basic. No search function that I could tell.
- colbyfayock 2y ago
  will be adding more features, including search, over time! my first past was mainly focused on initial organization and editing, including Creations (which i was most excited about)
speps 2y ago
Thought I heard the name before: https://www.photobox.co.uk/ https://www.photobox.co.uk/ Probably a good idea to change the name now... However, I'm always surprised people don't search for the name of their project before using it. Also, if common TLDs are already registered, I'd usually avoid using the name as well in case of future success and spoofing the domains.
- JustSomeNobody 2y ago
  This happens too often for it to just not be on purpose.
wackget 2y ago
Does anyone know of an offline photo manager with object detection search? All I want is an app which I can point at a folder and then search for "cat" or whatever and have it show all the pictures with cats. Seems like all the photo apps I look at are either vastly over-engineered or lack this kind of visual search/tagging.
- mholt 2y ago
  Do any of Photostructure, Photoprism, Ente, or Immich fit the bill? (Edit: I guess Ente is online)
  - 0x6c6f6c 2y ago
    I know they (Ente) are working on local ML features for those types of use cases. Don't know the latest status.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- azeemba 2y ago
  https://immich.app/ https://immich.app/ has built in auto-detection and tagging. I am surprised by the over-engineered comment. Object auto-detection is kind of an advanced feature and I would expect a lot of extra infra required for it. Immich hides it because they just publish docker containers for you but I imagine it would feel more complex if you were to look at the internals.
- neongodzilla 2y ago
  Digikam
- VoVAllen 2y ago
  immich did this perfectly. see https://www.reddit.com/r/immich/comments/1bdi3dz/immich_is_amazing_the_new_contextual_search_is/ https://www.reddit.com/r/immich/comments/1bdi3dz/immich_is_a...
- Terretta 2y ago
Rygian 2y ago
It is often good for the ecosystem that we have choice of tools for a given task, so I applaud the general effort gone into this additional "Google Photos 'Clone'". Here the challenge is to actually understand what "Google Photos" is before claiming that this is a Clone. In order to successfully clone Google Photos, one needs: 1.- A backing storage. 2.- A web application. 3.- A mobile application (and optionally a desktop application). 4.- A data synchronization model to maintain a 2-way sync between backing storage and each locally installed application. 5.- A data model of pictures, timeline, and albums, that does not depend on where the picture is physically stored (for example, I can create an album on my phone offline, and whenever I come online the sync happens and the same album appears on the web application view). 6.- AI features (eg. face detection) sprinkled on top of the backing storage, and available on both web application and locally installed applications. From a cursory review, this current attempt only satisfies 1 and 2.
- Terretta 2y ago
  7.- A method to proactively decrease quality of all images to save storage, and delete all images if you don't look at them for 2 years or have too many. https://support.google.com/photos/answer/6220791 https://support.google.com/photos/answer/6220791
  - niknetniko 2y ago
    I don't get what this means? - There an option to compress images before uploading (which is probably on by default). Not unreasonable. - Content is deleted if you do not access Google Photos in any way during two years AND do not have a paid storage plan. Not unreasonable. - If you use more storage than you pay for during two years, content will be deleted. Again, not unreasonable. I really do no get the complaint here.
    - Rygian 2y ago
      I upload my pictures with quality q=X. The next day I download a picture. Quality is q=Y, where Y < X. One year after, I download the same picture. Quality is q=Z, where Z < Y < X. So my pictures uploaded to Google Photos suffer from decay, whenever Google chooses to degrade quality. None of your "not unreasonable" scenarios are involved.
yellowapple 2y ago
> A free Cloudinary account is required to set up a new Photobox! Why?
- colbyfayock 2y ago
  the app relies on it's storage, image composition, and AI features there's no reason someone couldn't swap out the underlaying tech and take advantage of the UI, but it's a big undertaking

92 points by colbyfayock 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

turnsout 2y ago

Heads up: depends on an account at Cloudinary

aidenn0 2y ago

Unless Cloudinary is open-source (hadn't heard of it before, a quick browse of their site makes me think it isn't) then calling this a Free/Open Source project is somewhat questionable, since it leverages Cloudinary for a lot of what it does.

type0 2y ago
Immich is self hosted and open source
- figmert 2y ago
  Or if you're in the nextcloud ecosystem, you can use Memories
- lenova 2y ago
  +1 for Immich, it's been cool watching their development journey on /r/selfhosted the last year or so: https://github.com/immich-app/immich https://github.com/immich-app/immich
- selcuka 2y ago
  My only gripe with Immich is it renames the files to UUIDs, and stores them in its own directory structure. This works ok if you are only backing up images from your phone as file names don't make sense anyway, but if you have existing backups it makes it harder to sync them. I am planning to use NextCloud for the sync, as I like its YEAR/MONTH/FILE structure, and configuring it as an external library in Immich. I could also use NextCloud Memories, but Immich UI is nicer, and its face/object recognition model is better.
  - em-bee 2y ago
    copying and renaming files would be an immediate fail criteria. there is no way that i am going to let it copy and rename 1TB of photos. but you say it can also use external libraries? so it does not copy those?
    - selcuka 2y ago
      > but you say it can also use external libraries? so it does not copy those? Yes, it only renames files automatically sync'd from your phone. My understanding is it creates a separate metadata file for each external file, but doesn't touch the actual files in an external library.
  - loughnane 2y ago
    I’ve been playing with it the last week and there’s an option to load “external libraries” as read only. It seems to work nice for my existing photos.
    - benmccann 2y ago
      External libraries are no longer readonly in the latest release as many users wanted to be able to delete photos in external libraries, but you can mount the Docker volume containing your external library as readonly if the readonly aspect is important to you.
      - loughnane 2y ago
        Yeah, saw that note earlier in the week. I have it set to read-only through docker for now, but I like the idea of being able to edit metadata. We'll see.
        falchy 2y ago
        Unless you explicitly want write, I'd leave it at read-only anyway since they had a (very, very quickly corrected) bug that could result in data loss for external libraries not mounted as read-only this last week.
colbyfayock 2y ago
it's not uncommon for Open Source projects to rely on non OSS services. the project itself is Open Source which is where the designation comes from as far as free, it's absolutely free to spin up. it does require registration (like any other service), but Cloudinary has a generous free tier. it was made pretty clear on the website and repository it relied on that service just for transparency, i work at Cloudinary, but I stand by the above whether it was Cloudinary or another service

xnx 2y ago

Happy to see any open source project, but this seems very basic. No search function that I could tell.

colbyfayock 2y ago
will be adding more features, including search, over time! my first past was mainly focused on initial organization and editing, including Creations (which i was most excited about)

speps 2y ago

Thought I heard the name before: https://www.photobox.co.uk/ https://www.photobox.co.uk/ Probably a good idea to change the name now... However, I'm always surprised people don't search for the name of their project before using it. Also, if common TLDs are already registered, I'd usually avoid using the name as well in case of future success and spoofing the domains.

JustSomeNobody 2y ago
This happens too often for it to just not be on purpose.

wackget 2y ago

Does anyone know of an offline photo manager with object detection search? All I want is an app which I can point at a folder and then search for "cat" or whatever and have it show all the pictures with cats. Seems like all the photo apps I look at are either vastly over-engineered or lack this kind of visual search/tagging.

mholt 2y ago
Do any of Photostructure, Photoprism, Ente, or Immich fit the bill? (Edit: I guess Ente is online)
- 0x6c6f6c 2y ago
  I know they (Ente) are working on local ML features for those types of use cases. Don't know the latest status.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
azeemba 2y ago
https://immich.app/ https://immich.app/ has built in auto-detection and tagging. I am surprised by the over-engineered comment. Object auto-detection is kind of an advanced feature and I would expect a lot of extra infra required for it. Immich hides it because they just publish docker containers for you but I imagine it would feel more complex if you were to look at the internals.
neongodzilla 2y ago
Digikam
VoVAllen 2y ago
immich did this perfectly. see https://www.reddit.com/r/immich/comments/1bdi3dz/immich_is_amazing_the_new_contextual_search_is/ https://www.reddit.com/r/immich/comments/1bdi3dz/immich_is_a...
Terretta 2y ago

Rygian 2y ago

It is often good for the ecosystem that we have choice of tools for a given task, so I applaud the general effort gone into this additional "Google Photos 'Clone'". Here the challenge is to actually understand what "Google Photos" is before claiming that this is a Clone. In order to successfully clone Google Photos, one needs: 1.- A backing storage. 2.- A web application. 3.- A mobile application (and optionally a desktop application). 4.- A data synchronization model to maintain a 2-way sync between backing storage and each locally installed application. 5.- A data model of pictures, timeline, and albums, that does not depend on where the picture is physically stored (for example, I can create an album on my phone offline, and whenever I come online the sync happens and the same album appears on the web application view). 6.- AI features (eg. face detection) sprinkled on top of the backing storage, and available on both web application and locally installed applications. From a cursory review, this current attempt only satisfies 1 and 2.

Terretta 2y ago
7.- A method to proactively decrease quality of all images to save storage, and delete all images if you don't look at them for 2 years or have too many. https://support.google.com/photos/answer/6220791 https://support.google.com/photos/answer/6220791
- niknetniko 2y ago
  I don't get what this means? - There an option to compress images before uploading (which is probably on by default). Not unreasonable. - Content is deleted if you do not access Google Photos in any way during two years AND do not have a paid storage plan. Not unreasonable. - If you use more storage than you pay for during two years, content will be deleted. Again, not unreasonable. I really do no get the complaint here.
  - Rygian 2y ago
    I upload my pictures with quality q=X. The next day I download a picture. Quality is q=Y, where Y < X. One year after, I download the same picture. Quality is q=Z, where Z < Y < X. So my pictures uploaded to Google Photos suffer from decay, whenever Google chooses to degrade quality. None of your "not unreasonable" scenarios are involved.

yellowapple 2y ago

> A free Cloudinary account is required to set up a new Photobox! Why?

colbyfayock 2y ago
the app relies on it's storage, image composition, and AI features there's no reason someone couldn't swap out the underlaying tech and take advantage of the UI, but it's a big undertaking