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Android does this too. I don't really want all my photos indexed like that, I just want a linear timeline of photos, but I cant turn off their "memories" thing

Android does this too. I don't really want all my photos indexed like that, I just want a linear timeline of photos, but I cant turn off their "memories" thing or all the analysis they do to them

buran77 2y ago
The "memories" part can be trivially done locally and probably is, it's really just reading the picture's "date taken", so it's conceptually as easy as a "sort by date". My old Android with whatever Photos app came with it (not Google's) shows this despite being disconnected for so long. There's nothing stopping either Apple or Google from giving users an option to just disable these connected features, globally or per-app. Just allow a "no cloud services" toggle switch in the Photos app, get the warning that $FEATURES will stop working, and be done. I know why Google isn't doing this, they're definitely monetizing every bit of that analyzed content. Not really sure about Apple though, might be that they consider their setup with HE as being on par with no cloud connectivity privacy wise.
- voidUpdate 2y ago
  "memories" constantly given me notifications about "similar shots" at random, so I'm assuming it is trying to analyse the content of the photos. I managed to disable the notifications, but not the actual analysis
- Someone 2y ago
  > The "memories" part can be trivially done locally and probably is, it's really just reading the picture's "date taken", so it's conceptually as easy as a "sort by date". It’s more. It also can create memories “trip to New York in 2020”, “Cityscapes in New York over the years”, or “Peter over the years” (with Peter being a person added to Photos)
Aachen 2y ago
No Android phone I've ever owned automatically uploaded your photos without asking. What exactly do you mean that it does too?
ranguna 2y ago
Uninstall Google photos and install a dumb photos app. I think most android phones don't even come with Google photos pre installed.
- TheSpiceIsLife 2y ago
  Dumb Photo App by Nefarious DataExfiltration Co & Son
  - tcfhgj 2y ago
    Fossify gallery
  - ThePowerOfFuet 2y ago
    This is what the "Allow Network permission" checkbox in the app installation dialog on GrapheneOS is for.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
y04nn 2y ago
I don't think Android does that. It's only Google Photo and only if you upload them to the cloud, if you don't sync/upload them, you can't search them with specific terms.
lucideer 2y ago
Android doesn't do this. Everything is opt-in. Granted they require you to opt-in in order for the photos app to be usable & if you go out of your way to avoid opting in they make your photo-browsing life miserable with prompts & notifications. But you do still have to opt-in.
- nine_k 2y ago
  A number of good third-party photo-browsing apps make it non-miserable, even if you never open Google Photos or even uninstall it.
  - lucideer 2y ago
    I've seen a lot of people saying this generally but no specific recommendations. I've used Simple Gallery Pro before but it's not very good. Currently using Immich but that's not really a general photo app - it's got a narrow use case - so I still use the Google Photos app alongside it quite often. Specific alternative recommendations that aren't malware welcome.
    - marmight 2y ago
      It depends which features you need, but interestingly Google has another, lighter weight gallery app called Google Gallery that does not have any cloud features built in.
    - ckae 2y ago
      Fossify Gallery (on Fdroid or Google store) works quite nicely for me as a nice and simple photo viewer and management app.
    - nine_k 2y ago
      Simple Gallery Pro is what I use, and it seems fine to me. What do you think should be added to it, or altered? Just curious how other people see UX.
    - pertique 2y ago
      I can't personally vouch for it as I'm still stuck in Google Photos and would prefer to self-host it, but Ente may interest you. Open source, end-to-end encrypted, self-host or cloud.
numpad0 2y ago
uninstall(disable) stock Google Photos app and install `gallery2.apk`. You can download one from sketchy github repos, or I think you can alternatively extract from Emulator image.
- nine_k 2y ago
  Why, install a non-sketchy open-source gallery app from F-Droid.
AshamedCaptain 2y ago
Samsung at least does these "dog" cataloguing & searches entirely on-device, as trivially checked by disabling all network connectivity and taking a picture. It may ping home for several other reasons, though.
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  Does or doesn't. You can't really tell if and when it does any cataloguing; best I've managed to observe is that you can increase chances of it happening if you keep your phone plugged in to a charger for extended periods of time. That's the problem with all those implementations: no feedback of any kind. No list of recognized tags. No information of what is or is to be processed. No nothing. Just magic that doesn't work.
  - reaperman 2y ago
    With embeddings, there might not be tags to display. Instead of labeling the photo with a tag of “dog”, it might just check whether the embedding of each photo is within some vector distance of the embedding of your search text.
    - TeMPOraL 2y ago
      Yes and no. Embeddings can be used in both directions - if you can find images closest to some entries in a search text, you can also identify tokens or phrases closest in space to any image or cluster of images, and output that. It's a problem long solved in many different ways, including but not limited to e.g.: https://github.com/pythongosssss/ComfyUI-WD14-Tagger https://github.com/pythongosssss/ComfyUI-WD14-Tagger which uses specific models to generate proper booru tags out of any image you pass to it. More importantly, I know for sure they have this capability in practice, because if you tap the right way in the right app, when the Moon is in just the right phase, both Samsung Gallery and OneDrive Photos does (or in case of OneDrive, used to): - Provide occasional completions and suggestions for predefined categories, like "sunset" or "outwear" or "people", etc.; - Auto-tag photos with some subset of those (OneDrive, which also sometimes records it in metadata), or if you use "edit tag" options, suggest best fitting tags (Samsung); - Have a semi-random list of "Things" to choose from to categorize your photos, such as "Sunsets", "City", "Outdoors", "Room", etc. Google Photos does that one too. This shows they do maintain a list of correct and recommended classifications. They just choose to keep it hidden. With regards to face recognition, it's even worse. There's zero controls and zero information other than occasionally matched (and often mismatched) face under photo properties, that you can sometimes delete.

Android does this too. I don't really want all my photos indexed like that, I just want a linear timeline of photos, but I cant turn off their "memories" thing or all the analysis they do to them

buran77 2y ago

The "memories" part can be trivially done locally and probably is, it's really just reading the picture's "date taken", so it's conceptually as easy as a "sort by date". My old Android with whatever Photos app came with it (not Google's) shows this despite being disconnected for so long. There's nothing stopping either Apple or Google from giving users an option to just disable these connected features, globally or per-app. Just allow a "no cloud services" toggle switch in the Photos app, get the warning that $FEATURES will stop working, and be done. I know why Google isn't doing this, they're definitely monetizing every bit of that analyzed content. Not really sure about Apple though, might be that they consider their setup with HE as being on par with no cloud connectivity privacy wise.

voidUpdate 2y ago
"memories" constantly given me notifications about "similar shots" at random, so I'm assuming it is trying to analyse the content of the photos. I managed to disable the notifications, but not the actual analysis
Someone 2y ago
> The "memories" part can be trivially done locally and probably is, it's really just reading the picture's "date taken", so it's conceptually as easy as a "sort by date". It’s more. It also can create memories “trip to New York in 2020”, “Cityscapes in New York over the years”, or “Peter over the years” (with Peter being a person added to Photos)

Aachen 2y ago

No Android phone I've ever owned automatically uploaded your photos without asking. What exactly do you mean that it does too?

ranguna 2y ago

Uninstall Google photos and install a dumb photos app. I think most android phones don't even come with Google photos pre installed.

TheSpiceIsLife 2y ago
Dumb Photo App by Nefarious DataExfiltration Co & Son
- tcfhgj 2y ago
  Fossify gallery
- ThePowerOfFuet 2y ago
  This is what the "Allow Network permission" checkbox in the app installation dialog on GrapheneOS is for.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

y04nn 2y ago

I don't think Android does that. It's only Google Photo and only if you upload them to the cloud, if you don't sync/upload them, you can't search them with specific terms.

lucideer 2y ago

Android doesn't do this. Everything is opt-in. Granted they require you to opt-in in order for the photos app to be usable & if you go out of your way to avoid opting in they make your photo-browsing life miserable with prompts & notifications. But you do still have to opt-in.

nine_k 2y ago
A number of good third-party photo-browsing apps make it non-miserable, even if you never open Google Photos or even uninstall it.
- lucideer 2y ago
  I've seen a lot of people saying this generally but no specific recommendations. I've used Simple Gallery Pro before but it's not very good. Currently using Immich but that's not really a general photo app - it's got a narrow use case - so I still use the Google Photos app alongside it quite often. Specific alternative recommendations that aren't malware welcome.
  - marmight 2y ago
    It depends which features you need, but interestingly Google has another, lighter weight gallery app called Google Gallery that does not have any cloud features built in.
  - ckae 2y ago
    Fossify Gallery (on Fdroid or Google store) works quite nicely for me as a nice and simple photo viewer and management app.
  - nine_k 2y ago
    Simple Gallery Pro is what I use, and it seems fine to me. What do you think should be added to it, or altered? Just curious how other people see UX.
  - pertique 2y ago
    I can't personally vouch for it as I'm still stuck in Google Photos and would prefer to self-host it, but Ente may interest you. Open source, end-to-end encrypted, self-host or cloud.

numpad0 2y ago

uninstall(disable) stock Google Photos app and install `gallery2.apk`. You can download one from sketchy github repos, or I think you can alternatively extract from Emulator image.

nine_k 2y ago
Why, install a non-sketchy open-source gallery app from F-Droid.

AshamedCaptain 2y ago

Samsung at least does these "dog" cataloguing & searches entirely on-device, as trivially checked by disabling all network connectivity and taking a picture. It may ping home for several other reasons, though.

TeMPOraL 2y ago
Does or doesn't. You can't really tell if and when it does any cataloguing; best I've managed to observe is that you can increase chances of it happening if you keep your phone plugged in to a charger for extended periods of time. That's the problem with all those implementations: no feedback of any kind. No list of recognized tags. No information of what is or is to be processed. No nothing. Just magic that doesn't work.
- reaperman 2y ago
  With embeddings, there might not be tags to display. Instead of labeling the photo with a tag of “dog”, it might just check whether the embedding of each photo is within some vector distance of the embedding of your search text.
  - TeMPOraL 2y ago
    Yes and no. Embeddings can be used in both directions - if you can find images closest to some entries in a search text, you can also identify tokens or phrases closest in space to any image or cluster of images, and output that. It's a problem long solved in many different ways, including but not limited to e.g.: https://github.com/pythongosssss/ComfyUI-WD14-Tagger https://github.com/pythongosssss/ComfyUI-WD14-Tagger which uses specific models to generate proper booru tags out of any image you pass to it. More importantly, I know for sure they have this capability in practice, because if you tap the right way in the right app, when the Moon is in just the right phase, both Samsung Gallery and OneDrive Photos does (or in case of OneDrive, used to): - Provide occasional completions and suggestions for predefined categories, like "sunset" or "outwear" or "people", etc.; - Auto-tag photos with some subset of those (OneDrive, which also sometimes records it in metadata), or if you use "edit tag" options, suggest best fitting tags (Samsung); - Have a semi-random list of "Things" to choose from to categorize your photos, such as "Sunsets", "City", "Outdoors", "Room", etc. Google Photos does that one too. This shows they do maintain a list of correct and recommended classifications. They just choose to keep it hidden. With regards to face recognition, it's even worse. There's zero controls and zero information other than occasionally matched (and often mismatched) face under photo properties, that you can sometimes delete.