7d ago

What is the best way to sync images to my NAS?

I'm kind of surprised I've struggled with this so long. Right now I've been using nextcloud camera upload, and mostly it works ok but shits the bed once in a while without me noticing and I need to spend time fixing it and it's never as simple as turning it off and on again.

I recently tried syncthing, and while it works, it frequently crashed and got stuck in a state where it says it's on and working by my destination folder is shown as disconnected, and the options to restart syncthing from the side menu are greyed out and the only way to make it work again is by force closing it and reopening it.

I'm running vanilla stock Google Android and truenas, does anyone have a better solution?

46 comments

Immich
- Immich supports image uploads from a phone?
  
  Yes.
  It can also sync across the internet if you have it set up appropriately.
  Very neat and they have recently implemented (chrome) casting capability into the app.
  
  Yes
- This is the way
- How can I sync all my photos locally to a new phone / device? Last I tried it, I had to sync one picture at a time
  
  I wouldnt use immich like that.
  You backup your images to immich.
  Once there, you keep them there primarily and stream what you need (redownloading like it works on Google photos doesnt work like that as it stores the pictures in it's own folder).
  At least that's how I use it.
  
  Do a one-time copy of your photos using SFTP or FolderSync or whatever works for you.
- I plan to use immich just what’s the difference between latest and next on their site? Is next the like beta testing?
After managing pictures from my phones and DSLR I finally took the time to set up immich.
And it was definitely worth it.
When SyncThing is correctly configured (battery optimizations , etc.), you won't have any issues. (I've been using SyncThing for many many years now.)
- Any suggestions on how to optimize it? :)
  Using it on my steamdeck and on-demand on my phone.
  
  Set up a "global" ignore file that gets synced between devices. Call it .stignoreglobal for example and and change the .stignore file (which doesnt get synced) on every device to only include #include .stignoreglobal. Now your ignore state gets synced between devices and you can make changes from anywhere.
  Mine looks like this:
  
  // Incomplete Downloads *.part *.crdownload // OS-generated files desktop.ini Thumbs.db // Cache cache spotifycache // Unity analytics Unity // LineageOS updater org.lineageos.updater // No read access :( /Android/{data,obb}
  You can learn how to write one yourself here: https://docs.syncthing.net/users/ignoring.html
  Other stuff:
  On Android I use this: https://f-droid.org/packages/com.github.catfriend1.syncthingandroid/
  Some Info on how you can reduce battery usage: https://github.com/Catfriend1/syncthing-android/blob/main/wiki/Info-on-battery-optimization-and-settings-affecting-battery-usage.md
  Make sure SyncThing is excluded from your phone's battery optimizations (varies by vendor).
  To save on mobile bandwidth I have it set up to only sync on WiFi.
  You can set up a symmetric key (basically a password) and sync your stuff to a friends instance. Your friend will not be able to read the data without the key (make sure it's a long random string). This also helps if you're running a SyncThing instance on a VPS for example.
- I might wipe data from syncthing and try again, I think I accidentally screwed up one of those settings and was never prompted again thereafter.
I use Syncthing to sync DCIM and Pictures folders from Android to my computer. Every six month or so, I move pictures from these folder to the folder for this years pictures: home/pictures/2025. So they disappear from my phone as well, which is great to free up space. This works great for me.
- I played more and got it working a bit better. Where it becomes a management nightmare is how it's designed. Too much of a hassle to sync between a server and DHCP clients over different vlans.
As others has posted. Immich or photoprism. But, i'd check your settings, nextcloud instant upload and syncthing work wonders for me.
- I wasn't aware that either of these had a syncing feature. How well does immich work? I've been looking to switch to it from phptoprism for a while
  
  Sorry. Couldnt help you with that. I use nextcloud and syncthing myself.
  Havent try immich but i heard immich was the next best thing, be aware though, last i heard even the dev said the app was in active development so things might break.
  
  I'm getting my first server up and running and always considered getting immich. But lately I'm leaning towards photoprism because of updates breaking immich sometimes apparently and photoprism being more mature(?).
  Why do you want to switch?
- Photoprism recommends you download a $5 app. It works ok enough, but they are clearly trying to monetize.
USB cable from iPhone to PC.
Sort by date in filemanager.
Copy all images since last date backed up to my PC.
Review and delete crappy images.
Move to my NAS via filemanager.
Create a textfile called t.ex. 07juli (so that next time I know to copy files after this date, since I like to keep most pics on my phone).
Do this once or twice a month :)
- This works well, but not when you have 13k/150GB of photos lol
Check your Syncthing settings. It's a very reliable piece of software. Other than that Immich, but that's a slightly different use case.
- I figured it out. It gets a little more complex when you're using a reverse proxy and inter-vlan routing lol.
  Too much of a hassle for me, unless I dump the instance on my wifi network but if I set this up I'd like the option to use it for my other vlans too.
I can't remember a time where I didn't have issues with syncing apps. They always just seem to stop working and it's always frustrated me. It feels like to me there's too much complexity under the hood and it exhausts me when something goes wrong.
As a result I've been using rsync commands as a way to sync files and folders. After the initial setup, I haven't experienced any issues and it's been consistent and reliable. I even created my own tool which simplifies each rsync command into a file for easier syncing/restoring of my data. I use it to sync between my laptop, android phone using Termux terminal and my two Raspberry Pi's.
Rsync does have limitations like not being able to do two-way syncing but for my usage I am okay with that. I'm generally backing up data in most cases. Rsync does offer more flexibility since it's a command line tool so I'm able to create backups of my entire system or sync specific files and folders. I can also set up cron jobs to have syncs performed periodically but I mainly do all my syncing manually because I like to see where all my data is moving.
As long as all my devices have static IP addresses within the network and I don't mess around with any directory names/locations, everything just works and I've had a lot less headaches managing my data and backups. I also have a lot more confidence in my backup/restore process when compared to when I used other syncing programs/apps in the past.
rclone is pretty reliable. That's how I back up my nextcloud to two different object storage sites. I have Nextcloud dockerized on a VPS in the cloud (among other dockerized services for selfhosting). Been syncing nonstop for 3 years now. I also used rclone to sync all my files from OneDrive directly to my VPS block storage. Rclone is a very underrated utility.
Rsync, termux widget with a bash. Press button and it syncs my photos to my server filesystem
- Sounds like the easiest method lol. At least that way I could add in something to delete photos after copying them if they're X days old.
  
  Definitely easiest and most manual, but not "robust" I guess but its hard for it to fail you're more likely to have user error than system error
I've been using FolderSync. It let's you sync to/from a remote server through a bunch of different protocols like SMB, SFTP, and WebDAV. You can schedule it to run automatically.
I haven't tried it myself, but I think there is a way you can get Tasker to run scripts in Termux. You could set up your own rsync scripts that way.
I've had pretty good experience with Nextcloud's instant upload. The only time I've had it shit the bed was ages ago when it would occasionally get stuck on a conflict, but that hasn't happened in a long time. Pretty much all of my image folders (camera/DCIM, Screenshots, Downloads) get synced. The only annoying thing was when apps would suddenly change where they download to and I'd have to reconfigure yet another sync folder, but I can't really fault NC for that.
Mine is set to upload and keep a local copy and only do a one way sync (phone to NC). Not sure if that causes less issues than a 2 way sync or deleting the local copy after upload?
- I've had nothing but issues with NC instant upload, and stopped using it. It's error prone and needs constant hand holding for no good reason. It didn't handle taking a picture and then deleting it instantly very well (and will throw your notifications at you for this, often more than 1). When you have limited connectivity it will utterly confuse itself and ask you to resolve conflicts for 100 files for no reason, when it could just checksum server and client files and notice they are all the exact same. Also when set to only upload on WiFi, and not being connected to WiFi it often still spams notifications that the "upload failed", despite not being supposed to upload anything. And btw. it could upload files just fine, they failed only because upload on mobile is disabled!
  It's a nightmare. Commonly also referred to as a cluster fuck.

46 comments