recommendations for selfhosted photo backup solution: folders vs albums? - eviltoast

I need to put some order with the photos I take and I receive with my android phone. Just now I use Nextcloud sync client to upload and Photo/Memories Nextcloud Apps to manage photos.

However, I am not very happy with this setup because of the lack of one Android Application for photos and, thus, the photo gallery of my phone is totally different to the Photo/Memories timeline. And photos are not deleted from my mobile phone when I delete them in Photo/Memories. Which selfhosted photo manager do you think is better to backup and manage photos in sync with the phone?

A second question, is it better to manage the photo gallery with a folder structure or with the album functionality of the Photo application? Which is the best interoperable solution? If I use albums in Memories then I can export those albums to Immich, Librephotos… ? Or I would have to create all the albums again after the export?

  • PuppyOSAndCoffee@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    This is a great question. The photo ecosystem is one where I haven’t found a FOSS soln that hits all the marks of subscription services. I would focus on whatever helps you search.

    I do feel like if files have accurate dates in the file system and in metadata, then folders based on event make sense.

    However subscription photo services are very good at automatically sorting - these dates are holidays so these pictures are probably for that holiday. Your home location is here, these pictures are over there so this must be your trip to there. These pictures have these people or animals, so these pictures are about them.

    With that comes seamless integration across devices - a picture taken at time now can be seen on a tv or laptop at time +x. Etc.

    I have left the FOSS photo world but am definitely interested to see where it is. With digital photography finding pictures is the real trick. using folders like a tag hierarchy at least gets you in the ball park imo. But I have no practical knowledge any more.