Archiving photos/media from Android phone to Linux PC
I have a Linux desktop (Ubuntu) which already gets backed up and has a decent amount of disk space on it. And I have several Android phones (mine, my wife's, etc) all of which accumulate photos and videos taken on the phone eating into storage and never getting archived off the device or properly backed up. What I want to achieve is that when at home on Wifi the phone will automatically sync all photos and video to my desktop and delete older (configurable) ones of the devices to free up space. (What I really want is to know with 100% confidence whether something is backed up so I can decide to delete it if it's taking up a lot of space; usually paranoia kicks in and I hang onto things on the device, and of-course then I run out of space...) Whilst I will happily manage the desktop end, the phone end needs to be "wife friendly", ie there needs to be an app that will do it for her. The Internet isn't short of suggestions but really I'm looking for advice from others who have done this. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER
I have Nextcloud server running on an old PC in my shed. Whenever I'm on WiFi with my phone the Nextcloud app should perform 'instant upload'. It's not 100% reliable though, sometimes I have to go into the app and remind it! My wife uses Grsync on her (Mint) PC to backup to the same server (though she has iPad and iCloud for most photos). There are rsync apps for Android that might help but I havn't tried them. -- PhilOn Sun, 2019-05-19 at 18:38 +0100, Mark Rogers wrote:
I have a Linux desktop (Ubuntu) which already gets backed up and has a decent amount of disk space on it.
And I have several Android phones (mine, my wife's, etc) all of which accumulate photos and videos taken on the phone eating into storage and never getting archived off the device or properly backed up.
What I want to achieve is that when at home on Wifi the phone will automatically sync all photos and video to my desktop and delete older (configurable) ones of the devices to free up space. (What I really want is to know with 100% confidence whether something is backed up so I can decide to delete it if it's taking up a lot of space; usually paranoia kicks in and I hang onto things on the device, and of-course then I run out of space...)
Whilst I will happily manage the desktop end, the phone end needs to be "wife friendly", ie there needs to be an app that will do it for her.
The Internet isn't short of suggestions but really I'm looking for advice from others who have done this.
On Sun, 19 May 2019 at 19:49, Phil Thane <phil@pthane.co.uk> wrote:
I have Nextcloud server running on an old PC in my shed.
Nextcloud is the sort of thing that had crossed my mind, although I wondered if it would be overkill for media archiving only and I can't see me using any of its other features. (If I put it on a hosted server I might use it, but aside from the security concerns it also gets quite expensive for storing large media files.) But I'll look at the app, because ultimately if the app is great then the server-side stuff might be worthwhile.
There are rsync apps for Android that might help but I havn't tried them.
Hadn't considered rsync but will now, thanks. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER
On Mon, 20 May 2019 at 10:09, Mark Rogers <mark@more-solutions.co.uk> wrote:
Nextcloud is the sort of thing that had crossed my mind, although I wondered if it would be overkill for media archiving only and I can't see me using any of its other features. (If I put it on a hosted server I might use it, but aside from the security concerns it also gets quite expensive for storing large media files.) But I'll look at the app, because ultimately if the app is great then the server-side stuff might be worthwhile.
If you're after something that's as simple as possible on the client-side (your wife's phone) I second Nextcloud. The app's a lot more reliable nowadays, though I do agree with Phil, it's best to check occasionally if it's still working as expected. I've found it best to whitelist it from any battery saving system settings that will stop it from checking for new files to sync. Also, and this depends a lot on the phone, occasionally check any newly created media/camera folders that might not be sync enabled. As for server side, more control over the server requires a bit of extra tweaking as with anything but there's also the snap version for a more hassle free and simple setup. Still pretty configurable once you get the hang of snaps. John
On Mon, 20 May 2019 at 11:12, John Cohen <johnmcohen@gmail.com> wrote:
If you're after something that's as simple as possible on the client-side (your wife's phone) I second Nextcloud.
Thanks, I'll take a look.
As for server side, more control over the server requires a bit of extra tweaking as with anything but there's also the snap version for a more hassle free and simple setup. Still pretty configurable once you get the hang of snaps.
I tend to opt for manual setup rather than snaps but maybe I should learn these new fangled approaches! The main criteria is that it's easy to keep up to date, which I assume the snap makes easier than a manual install does? -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER
On Sun, May 19, 2019 at 06:38:17PM +0100, Mark Rogers wrote:
What I want to achieve is that when at home on Wifi the phone will automatically sync all photos and video to my desktop and delete older (configurable) ones of the devices to free up space. (What I really want is to know with 100% confidence whether something is backed up so
One option might be a free Dropbox account, if you trust Dropbox with your data. Also pCloud might be an option. Adam --
On Mon, 20 May 2019 at 10:40, Adam Bower <adam@thebowery.co.uk> wrote:
One option might be a free Dropbox account, if you trust Dropbox with your data. Also pCloud might be an option.
I don't personally have a privacy problem with Dropbox (or pCloud, I've used both and prefer the latter). But storage space is the problem; I'd be looking for at least 100GB which is nothing on a hard disk in my PC but not cheap online. I have used, and indeed do use, Resilio Sync, which is a similar approach but reliant entirely on your own storage so not limited. It's not free (beer or freedom), and if I started again I'd probably look at Syncthing first, but when I set up with Resilio (or Bittorrent Sync as it was) Syncthing had serious limitations, I don't know what it is like now. I did last night set up Resilio Sync on my phone to archive photos and that seems to have worked (it took all night to catch up!), and has the advantage of not relying on home wifi. But I'm not sure it's the best option for wife-friendliness. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER
On Mon, May 20, 2019 at 12:47:00PM +0100, Mark Rogers wrote:
On Mon, 20 May 2019 at 10:40, Adam Bower <adam@thebowery.co.uk> wrote:
One option might be a free Dropbox account, if you trust Dropbox with your data. Also pCloud might be an option.
I don't personally have a privacy problem with Dropbox (or pCloud, I've used both and prefer the latter). But storage space is the problem; I'd be looking for at least 100GB which is nothing on a hard disk in my PC but not cheap online.
I deal with that by simply copying the content out of the sync folder periodically into my own storage structure for photos. When I run out of free space in the sync directory I just purge that folder so the phone is free to sync files again. Adam --
participants (4)
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Adam Bower -
John Cohen -
Mark Rogers -
Phil Thane