submitted 2 months ago by florge@feddit.uk to c/buyeuropean@feddit.uk

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What are some google photos alternatives? I'm aware of Ente (not European), crypt.ee and zeitkapsl (saw someone mention it uses google apis). Also don't fancy going down the self-hosting route for the moment.

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[-] trapdoor@feddit.org 10 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Boomer me: get a 10TB drive and leave cloud services out of it

Otherwise Filen

[-] cabbage@piefed.social 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I used Google photos just to have my pictures and videos automatically uploaded from my phone when I took them and to the cloud, with the added perk that they could be viewed and shared online if I felt like it. I'm not sure if there's anything more to it?

If not, I recomend Nextcloud managed by some hosting provider. Hetzner is German and probably the cheapest option out there. I use Murena from France, as I'm fine paying a little more because they develop my phone OS. It's still a lot cheaper for me than my Dropbox subscription was, and I couldn't be happier with how Nextcloud works.

The fact that it's the same apps and functionality between different providers also makes it easier to switch down the road if necessary, whereas other providers might try to lock you into their app ecosystems in order to make you stick with them even as they increase prices or make their services worse.

[-] cile.sb@piefed.social -1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Google Photos has a great search engine – I can look up “dog” and it will find all the photos with a dog in them, or search for a place and find all the shots from there. You can select a face in one photo, and it will find all the photos of that person.

The albums are awesome too, since you can share them so all invited people can add their own photos. Perfect for weddings, birthday parties, and events in general.

[-] gjoel@programming.dev 14 points 2 months ago

I'm self hosting Immich. I honestly get much better results from their search than I do from Google photos. It's not quite as mature, but it's definitely good enough!

[-] Uriel_Copy@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

I searched my Immich instance for 'Camera obscura' because I knew I had a picture of one that I took years ago, but had no idea when... and it found it. Not sure Google would have been that good

[-] cile.sb@piefed.social 1 points 2 months ago

I’ll consider self-hosting once I have a decent internet connection :D

[-] cile.sb@piefed.social 1 points 2 months ago

Immich

How do you self host? Do you use a NAS? What kind of backup system do you use?

[-] gjoel@programming.dev 2 points 2 months ago

I run it off my Home Assistant. The images are stored on my Western Digital MyCloud EX2 Ultra (which is kinda crap, but works) on a RAID1 volume, which is mirrored onto a similar NAS in the other end of the house. Ideally it should be off-site, but I haven't been able to find a good spot yet.

[-] cabbage@piefed.social 1 points 2 months ago

Yeah, the machine learning functionality is missing in Nextcloud as far as I'm aware, and I remember it being pretty cool when it rolled out in Google photos (though that's also why I deleted all my stuff from there - I wear a tin foil hat). Personally I'm waiting for a good open source photo management software to handle it locally (I remember seeing Shotwell was working on face recognition), but that's hardly a solution at all.

[-] punkibas@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 months ago

Immich os what you need

[-] Mosfar@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 months ago

Check immich for self hosted and proton drive for cloud storage

[-] Tja@programming.dev 6 points 2 months ago

OP explicitly said no self-hosted...

[-] artiman@piefed.social 3 points 2 months ago

I'm using nextcloud hosted by adminforge.de with the nextcloud memories app on android they also host ente photos and they are located in germany they host for free but also accept donations to keep the services running.

[-] sloelk@piefed.social 2 points 2 months ago

why not the official nextcloud app? Is this a limit from adminforge?

I have a hosted nextcloud instance from hetzner.de for around 5€/month with 2TB

[-] artiman@piefed.social 3 points 2 months ago

the nextcloud memories app is a way better gallery app than nextcloud

[-] sloelk@piefed.social 1 points 2 months ago

ok, maybe I‘ll have a look.

[-] whulum@piefed.social 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Proton drive or pcloud are two european options. Also E2E

[-] brainscan@piefed.social 2 points 2 months ago

I use proton drive, it works. I`m missing a proton drive on linux :(

[-] ellen@piefed.social 0 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I run it on linux? You can download it from their website..

Only thing for me is that proton doesn't support photo albums, so waiting for that before I can cancel my MS onedrive.

Edit: mixed things up here, I use pCloud, also Swiss

[-] brainscan@piefed.social 3 points 2 months ago

There is no drive for linux, I`m checking it weekly :)

[-] ellen@piefed.social 1 points 2 months ago

Ah you are right, I stand corrected. I use pcloud, also swiss, confused it with proton (as I use proton pass etc). Pcloud works like a charm on linux/android.

[-] whulum@piefed.social 1 points 2 months ago

Good to hear. Might have to gice it another go. Have 500gb permanent storage, but were never able to install it on my linux distro last time i tried

[-] bart@piefed.social 2 points 2 months ago

If it is storage you are looking for; Drime. Their mobile app will be updated later this month to allow for photo sync

[-] Blaze@piefed.zip 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I've seen good feedback about Jottacloud.

I personally use Ente as there is E2EE, waiting for a European entity to start their own service with the Ente software.

[-] Kkk2237pl@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

Im using synology nas

[-] kofzmann@toots.nu 1 points 2 months ago

@Kkk2237pl @florge me too, works great with Synology Photos. However it is also possible to use with Nextcloud Photos but haven't tried that

[-] schubidubiduba@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 months ago

There's also pixelunion.eu

Basically a hosted version of Immich. Since they offer ML models for face recognition etc., your files are not end-to-end encrypted. Though they are very transparent about this and apparently make sure nobody has access, and data is encrypted at rest.

If you're not bothered by this, it might be a good option

[-] infuziSporg@hexbear.net 1 points 2 months ago

Are you familiar with alternativeto.net? One of the most useful sites out there.

[-] neeeil@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 months ago

Filen has photos support and is E2EE

[-] Ash@piefed.social 1 points 2 months ago

kDrive - infomaniak - Swiss.

[-] ZkhqrD5o@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

Nextcloud memories.

[-] hall71@mastodon.babb.no 1 points 2 months ago

@florge DigiKam and Jottacloud. The facial recognition is local only, and pretty damn good.

this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2026

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