Managing ernormous personal Photos/Videos and automating on PC/Android/NAS

[DrSiva2022]

Source of Media :

1. My phone
2. My sony a6400 Camera
3. Mom Phone
4. My wife phone
5. Online downloads for personal and for office works.

Storage :

1. Individuals phones
2. Me and my mom have Google one Subscriptions
3. NAS( UNRAID )
4. PC

The problem :

1. Our phones are getting full rapidly
2. I need one place to pour all contents and manage into (possibly into Unraid)
3. sync on other cloud service (blackblaze ? or other similar ? AWS ?) as final backup
4. Managing , sorting and syncing

first and foremost , what should i do to first sync all these files to local NAS ? All have android
I want individual person to have their own space on UNRAID , but they could share a part to common pool , say for example the camera uploads . Whatsapp and other media can remain in thier own personal space on unraid.
How to sort and manage these medias ? If i am going to automate , what should be the folder structure ?
I work with lightroom / PS etc , but still struggling to use LR to manage my photos.. when i start syncing all photos onto Unraid , how can i used LR with unraid ? Should i allow LR to manage the media or some docker app on unraid to manage ?
How to sync all uploaded files to other cloud service for storage alone.
I want the common folders to be either visible on all devices or even sync with all devices( for eg official document PDF`s like PAN , driving license etc..)

I think you guys can get the picture here , rather than me going into further details.

[MrGrey]

1) You'll find your family won't like your solution.

 

2) You'll find your family doesn't want to learn how to do things properly. (Onedrive, Google, Siri, Alexa is soooo much easier).

 

On 4/20/2023 at 9:42 AM, DrSiva2022 said:

I work with lightroom / PS etc

 

One of the first things I moved to digikam and hated for it.

 

Let them do what they want... BUT... keep the "digital" house secure.

 

MrGrey.

 

[ConnerVT]

On 4/22/2023 at 1:30 AM, MrGrey said:

1) You'll find your family won't like your solution.

 

All solutions require they pass the WAF test.

Edited April 23, 2023 by ConnerVT

[TimTheSettler]

Two things to consider with pictures on phones:

• You'll want them backed up.
• At some point the phone will run out of space.

 

The easiest way to solve the "running out of space" problem is to buy a microSD card and add more space.  This might not be possible or it might be too expensive.

 

The other thing that solves both problems but requires a bit of work is to install syncthing on the phone and your unRAID server.  Link the folder on the phone to a folder on unRAID (full bidirectional sync).  When the phones are on the same network as the unRAID server (in your house - easiest/safest solution) then the photos are synchronized between the phone and unRAID.  Once in a while you or mom or the wife will need to move photos from that folder on to another folder on the unRAID server.  This way the photos are still archived and sitting on the server but moving them out of the synchronized folder means that they are also removed from the phone thereby freeing up space.

 

So, just to clarify a bit here.  Each phone has a corresponding folder on the unRAID server.  Then, once in a while you move the photos from each of those folders to an archive folder somewhere else.

 

The easiest way to clean up the photos is to find a family event like a past birthday and move all those into a folder just for that event (like an album).  The drawback is that they are off the phone but if you're running out of space then so what.  Your "photo album" (folder) is still on unRAID and can be accessed.

 

Personally I have ALL photos synchronized to ALL my devices (phones, tablets).  We're talking about 77,000 photos (250GB).  I just make sure that any new phone I buy has a microSD slot and then I buy a 256GB (or 512GB) card.  Now I'll never run out, I have all photos available to me, and everything is backed up.  (Make sure to encrypt the card when you first put it in.)

 

 

Actually my setup is more sophisticated so read on if you're interested.  There's the camera folder on the phone and a separate pictures folder.  The camera folder is bidirectional sync which means that changes on either side are reflected back to the other device/server.  The pictures folder is one-way sync from unRAID to the phone.  All common pictures are put into the pictures folder and these are pushed to the phone.  This means that the phone has all family photos.  When you take a picture on the phone it's saved to the camera folder.  The camera folder is specific to the device but is synchronized to unRAID as a backup.  At some point you manage the camera folder (on unRAID) by moving photos from the camera folder to the pictures folder (like all photos for a birthday).  This moves the photos out of the camera folder on the phone but pushes them back up to the phone and into the pictures folder.  The benefit here is that each person takes their own photos but by moving the photos from the camera to the pictures you are sharing those photos because the pictures can be replicated to all devices.  If you're not sure if this makes sense but you're curious about how it works then I can explain it better with a diagram but if no one cares then I won't bother with diagrams.

 

In the pictures above note that camera folder is two-way sync between the camera folder on the phone to unRAID (left pic).  The right pic shows a one-way sync from unRAID back up to the phone into the pictures folder on the phone.  Your photos app (Google Photos or Samsung Gallery) will show all pics in both folders.

[Michael_P]

Sounds 

On 4/20/2023 at 12:42 PM, DrSiva2022 said:

1. My phone
2. My sony a6400 Camera
3. Mom Phone
4. My wife phone
5. Online downloads for personal and for office works.

 

Sounds like a job for Nextcloud

[Salpertia]

On 4/23/2023 at 2:15 PM, ConnerVT said:

 

All solutions require they pass the WAF test.

what does this stand for?

[tjb_altf4]

2 hours ago, Salpertia said:

what does this stand for?

WAF = Wife Acceptance Factor

If you made something too outlandish, not user friendly etc, it probably won't pass WAF test.

[DrSiva2022]

On 4/26/2023 at 9:38 AM, TimTheSettler said:

Two things to consider with pictures on phones:

• You'll want them backed up.
• At some point the phone will run out of space.

 

The easiest way to solve the "running out of space" problem is to buy a microSD card and add more space.  This might not be possible or it might be too expensive.

 

The other thing that solves both problems but requires a bit of work is to install syncthing on the phone and your unRAID server.  Link the folder on the phone to a folder on unRAID (full bidirectional sync).  When the phones are on the same network as the unRAID server (in your house - easiest/safest solution) then the photos are synchronized between the phone and unRAID.  Once in a while you or mom or the wife will need to move photos from that folder on to another folder on the unRAID server.  This way the photos are still archived and sitting on the server but moving them out of the synchronized folder means that they are also removed from the phone thereby freeing up space.

 

So, just to clarify a bit here.  Each phone has a corresponding folder on the unRAID server.  Then, once in a while you move the photos from each of those folders to an archive folder somewhere else.

 

The easiest way to clean up the photos is to find a family event like a past birthday and move all those into a folder just for that event (like an album).  The drawback is that they are off the phone but if you're running out of space then so what.  Your "photo album" (folder) is still on unRAID and can be accessed.

 

Personally I have ALL photos synchronized to ALL my devices (phones, tablets).  We're talking about 77,000 photos (250GB).  I just make sure that any new phone I buy has a microSD slot and then I buy a 256GB (or 512GB) card.  Now I'll never run out, I have all photos available to me, and everything is backed up.  (Make sure to encrypt the card when you first put it in.)

 

 

Actually my setup is more sophisticated so read on if you're interested.  There's the camera folder on the phone and a separate pictures folder.  The camera folder is bidirectional sync which means that changes on either side are reflected back to the other device/server.  The pictures folder is one-way sync from unRAID to the phone.  All common pictures are put into the pictures folder and these are pushed to the phone.  This means that the phone has all family photos.  When you take a picture on the phone it's saved to the camera folder.  The camera folder is specific to the device but is synchronized to unRAID as a backup.  At some point you manage the camera folder (on unRAID) by moving photos from the camera folder to the pictures folder (like all photos for a birthday).  This moves the photos out of the camera folder on the phone but pushes them back up to the phone and into the pictures folder.  The benefit here is that each person takes their own photos but by moving the photos from the camera to the pictures you are sharing those photos because the pictures can be replicated to all devices.  If you're not sure if this makes sense but you're curious about how it works then I can explain it better with a diagram but if no one cares then I won't bother with diagrams.

 

In the pictures above note that camera folder is two-way sync between the camera folder on the phone to unRAID (left pic).  The right pic shows a one-way sync from unRAID back up to the phone into the pictures folder on the phone.  Your photos app (Google Photos or Samsung Gallery) will show all pics in both folders.

Wonderful.

Will try to implement them.

 

Currently i am using nextcloud for backing up my camera folder from phone.

 

Currently yhe automated process is pretty nice.

 

At the same time , i wish there was option to clear the camera folder on phone in specific time , in automatic way.

 

Will try to use syncthing to integrate unraid and phones etc.