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Ask HN: What's the best way to de-Google photos?

7 points by strix_varius ↗ HN
After a little over a year of having a kid, I've run out of google storage (photos/drive/mail). I have a pixel phone and like the automatic backup to photos... however, for years I've considered using that as a short-term backup, since I don't trust google not to nuke my account or lock me out. There have been so many instances of that (many posted here), that I don't trust Google with irreplaceable data. Google's storage limits forcing me to figure something out have finally given me the kick I needed to detach myself from their services.

My ideal scenario is:

1. Automatic (periodic is fine)

2. Includes a local backup to physical media

3. Includes a cloud backup to some kind of cheap cold storage

4. Allows the pixel -> photos pipeline to keep running, since it's a convenient way to share albums with family. So I need to be able to automatically delete old google photos (to clear space) while also being able to mark albums as un-deleteable.

I started going down the rabbit hole of designing something myself using google takeout, or photos APIs, etc, and thought that maybe someone on HN has already put together an elegant solution.

17 comments

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solardev
FOSS: https://github.com/rclone/rclone

Paid: https://www.multcloud.com/

strix_varius
Thanks, rclone looks like an ideal primitive for a weekly cron job!
solardev
Have fun :) Might also wanna print out some of the especially sentimental ones on archival paper, just in case the interwebs all go kaput.
sandreas
Haha is

  all go kaput
a term native speakers use and understand? Sound a lot like german "kaputt" for broken...

I tend to burn blurays and put them to my parents :-)

dcminter
Brits say "kaput" in informal speech - OED says we pinched it from German. Not sure if it's common in US English.
solardev
Huh, I never really thought about it, lol. It was just the first thing that came to mind. I'm in the US and I think it hear it from time to time, but usually in silly contexts. It's just a fun word to say... we probably butcher the pronunciation, but we say kah-poot, like a sneezing owl.
sandreas
This is so cool. A little context:

In germany we sometimes try to be funny (in a nice way - not making fun of native speakers but more of ourselves not being able to translate something), when we translate german phrases to english word-by-word ignoring english grammar resulting in total nonsense. The closest comparable native speaker thing to do I can think of is "I can has cheezburger"[1]

For example: A german artist / comedian named Helge Schneider took the german phrase

  ich brech' zusammen
which would really translate in

  I collapse
but word by word it goes

  I break together
  
  I        => ich
  break    => brechen
  together => zusammen
which must be total nonsense to native speakers. He even took it a little further and replaced break (brechen) with brake (bremsen) to make it even more nonsense - probably only germans can really understand what's really meant [2].

Your phrase is pretty similar for german people (but more understandable to native speakers) - "das Internet geht kaputt" => "the internet will break", but word by word it is:

  the interwebs all go kaput

  the interwebs => das Internet
  goes          => geht
  kaput         => kaputt
Thank you for responding, I did not know that this was a thing - probably interesting for linguists how this came back to native speakers.

1: https://icanhas.cheezburger.com/

2: https://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000KLRUNY/

sandreas
Be careful with

  rclone sync
It might not work as expected and deletes things... Read the docs carefully. Maybe start using

  rclone copy
first and backup the downloaded files.

I prefer self-hosted, but besides

  immich
, there is

  ente.io
, which is saas or self-hosted
strix_varius
Thanks! In general with this kind of thing I'd run two separate processes: one that makes copies with write permission to the destination and another that verifies a copy exists then deletes the original with write permission to the source.
brtkdotse
Multicloud looks like something I’ve been looking for but the website gives of incredibly sketch vibes for some reason
solardev
It's a Hong Kong company, looks like.
CountGeek
Similar situation whereas instead of swapping cloud for cloud I purchased a QNAP which can run containers and have setup immich & caddy on that.

WAF is good and even grandparents are able to use the immich app to view photos.

leros
I really wish there was an easy way to backup Google Photos. I like it but I don't relying on them for backup.
Saris
I really like https://immich.app/

Has auto backup on the mobile apps, great webUI, multi user, face recognition and search all done locally.

Then for local and cloud backup you can use your preferred software like Restic or whatever you like.

nickster
I’ve been using Immich for about 4 months. My original goal was to migrate off of google photos. Immich is the best self hosted option. But google photos search is so much better. You can search for a location, date, item, landmark with natural language Immich takes a little finessing to get the result you’re looking for. It’s also not great for pet photos yet. I’m running both in parallel hoping some day Immich catches up with some of those features. I’ve donated for the license that funds some of the development. Even over the last four months I’ve seen some improvement. The mobile app needs some work for background syncing but it’s on the road map for early 2025.
jerezzprime
I have a server in my garage, and I periodically run RClone to clone my Google photos and Google drive to a local RAID cluster. I also periodically run duplicati to sync a copy of those files to Backblaze. It provides me protection against losing my Google account, and also protection against a local disaster (like a fire or something). Enough redundancy to keep me happy and those two programs are pretty easy to set up and run on a cron schedule.