Posted by reconnecting 21 hours ago
I’m not ready to pay $60/month, but I do like iCloud’s memories and other photo features. My compromise is simple:
- I use docker-icloudpd to download our iCloud Photos to local storage over time. It’s been the most practical way I’ve found to back up multiple accounts into one place, though it does require occasional re-auth every so often. - I keep only the last ~2 years of media in iCloud and delete older ones after they’re archived locally. - For browsing and searching the older archive, I use Immich, which has been a great self-hosted personal photo cloud experience with a modern app feel.
For storage, I’ve found fast local disk matters a lot once you’re digging up photos from 5+ years ago. Something like an OWC 4M2 with M.2 drives keeps the experience snappy; a typical HDD-based NAS can feel sluggish when you just want to quickly pull up an old memory.
It's macOS-only and intentionally minimal — the goal is just to download originals from iCloud Photos to disk without syncing everything into Photos.app first.
To be clear on limitations: it doesn't preserve albums or other metadata yet, and it's not meant to replace more full-featured tools. It’s mainly for the "I just want my photos off iCloud for backup" case.
Reading the comments here, it sounds like metadata preservation is a big pain point for many people — I'd be curious whether that's the first thing folks would want added, or if simple bulk export already covers most needs.
It seems like an obvious improvement for Time Machine to support full backups while using optimized storage on the primary system.
"I actually bought a Mac Studio"... "I don't understand why Apple don't " ... wait a minute
Time Machine's job is to back up my data, it's not strictly to make a 1:1 copy of local storage. It should back up my cloud data too.
I’ve found unreasonable value in being able to search through hundreds of thousands of photos from my phone, so I went all-in on Photos.app. Though one enabling factor is that my photography workflow has drastic simplified in recent years to doing very little post (except for astrophotography, which I try and keep wip out of Photos.app anyway).
IIRC Photos.app will not even open if the default library you are pointing at is not there (i.e drive was unplugged). Are you able to just open up the library file directly and it will work as expected?
I also recall when changing Photos.app back to the HDD Library it did a ~2h 'rebuild' session before it even started downloading the new photos, but maybe thats acceptable with the 'every so often' approach.
I have hit this too many times.
10 minutes is great, and my changes wouldn’t seem as extensive as yours. I need to dig deeper.
I migrated to Linux + Pika Backup. For photos I use Ente Photos with their managed cloud storage plus a continuous export to my NAS.
Ente is surprisingly well integrated with iOS, you really don’t need to use Apple’s solution. It automatically backs up photos I take in the background.
For edits, I don't care too much about just baking them in since it's unlikely I'm going back to old photos and want to undo the crop.
I haven't looked into the implementation details, but Photos lets you adjust the section of the video that is played back in slow motion. I thought if you share a slow-mo video, it gets re-encoded to bake this in (i.e., one second at 240fps gets exported as four seconds at 60fps).
For context, try tapping 'optimize photos' in iPhone storage settings and then figure out how to turn off the feature without using Google. Not only is the toggle nearly impossible to find, but it's also hidden from being searchable
Same place it’s always been. In Settings -> App -> Photos, toggle Download and Keep Originals. Same place it is for macOS as well. It’s not that magical. Search for “photos icloud” and you’ll be led to the setting for it.
Turn your phone? /ducks
But I can still not escape Apple’s gonorrhoeic naming and organisation.
Pro: FOSS of course; it works, with limitations (that’s mostly Apple) and glitches (that’s entirely ente)
Cons: really subpar non-native apps (desktop app is quite a dumb app as well) :( (and barely and useful additional features that lets a user do some batch/organisational changes or so)