Alternative Photo Backup Solutions for GrapheneOS Users

wuku

I have been using GrapheneOS for a while now and I am really enjoying it. However, I am facing a challenge when it comes to backing up my photos. I used to rely on Google Photos for this purpose but in my experience it is not possible to use it on GrapheneOS.

I would appreciate it if someone could guide me on whether it is possible to log into Google Photos on GrapheneOS, and if there are any good alternatives to consider. I would prefer a backup solution with more privacy.

matchboxbananasynergy

wuku Google Photos should work just fine on GrapheneOS.

You need to install Sandboxed Google Play and download Google Photos to use it.

https://grapheneos.org/features#sandboxed-google-play
https://grapheneos.org/usage#sandboxed-google-play-installation

Alternatively, you could use a similar service. No particular recommendations as I haven't used either, but there's one called Ente which some people use.

Kottonballs

I use Tresorit for file sharing and it has a photo backup capability. I haven't heard anyone warn about Tresorit yet but it's possible that they are not to be trusted and I haven't found that out yet.

intelligence

Yes, use NEXTCLOUD!!!

You can set up a nextcloud server, which can be on server hardware that you have access to, a virtual server, or even on a good quality home internet connection, and run the nextcloud files application on your phone, and you can have it automatically upload any data you like from your shared internal storage (including photos) to that server.

Nextcloud can do a lot more than just files backup. It basically replaces ALL of gooble, except search (you should be using DDG instead anyway)

Kottonballs

DDG is off topic but I trust DDG as much as I trust Google...not at all.

intelligence

Kottonballs Nobody is asking you to trust.

chuck

I use PCloud for my photos. When I take a picture, it is automatically copied to PCloud. It may not be the most private/secure as others, but is fine for me.

ozzmanj1

I just switched from Google Photos to Ente.io. I pay $5 a month for 100gb of storage, more than enough for me and 15 years of photos. I also keep local backup on my server. I have been pretty happy with Ente. Its all E2E encrypted and you have to use a 24 digit key to acces your stuff. You lose this key and you lose your access as Ente does not keep track of anything.

N3rdTek

ozzmanj1
If you don't mind me asking how is your experience so far and how long have you been using it? I'm currently between Ente and Crypt.ee

Crypt.ee send a bit more promises UX/UI wise for some reason but haven't done to deep yet and more privacy focused

Ente.io feels more polished if your goal is some kind of GPhotos Replacement. It's not perfect, but when combined with other App/Software solutions such as Aves this feels very very close to photos however Ente feels more security focused as during upload process I had one or two more hoops and duplicates (which was a bug and fixed)

Honestly they are both fantastic amazing applications. If all you're after are just photos and nothing else, I think Ente is what most people want.
However if you want to store any kind of documents or anything besides photos, check out crypt.ee
I'm curious to hear other people's thoughts on both please share your experiences

W1zardK1ng

If its just for backup you may try Syncthing.
No features like cloud storage, it just copy everything to your pc.

https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing

ozzmanj1

N3rdTek I have only been with them a few weeks, not even a month. It took me using it for about 3 days before I dropped Google photos altogether and used Google Takeout to export all my photos and videos. Importing them was super smooth, you can use the web interface or the fdroid app. They do have ios and gplay store links, but of course Fdroid it is. I really appreciate that they support a desktop app for windoze/mac and linux. I use Linux so I went with that desktop app. I was able to pull my sorted (mostly) photos and videos from exported Gphotos and dragged and dropped into the computer app. It was relatively simple and very fast to upload and create (as I dragged and dropped) new albums or added to existing albums. The android app is very nice. It just has a nice flow and feel to the app itself and I like that when I select to delete a photo or video from my phone, it asks if i want to delete from my phone alone or both the phone and cloud. If I had any gripe, it would be that you cannot send a link to someone for an individual photo or video. On Gphotos, if I had a video file that I wanted to send to other family members (all on ios) I had to create a shareable link and then send that to them for them to view, no such luck yet on Ente.io. However you can create a shareable link for an album.

They do offer I believe a free 7 or 14 day trial with very limited temp storage. Honestly, I have been extremely pleased with them and unless something goes seriously wonky with the company, I will stay.

I would like to one day use my home server (52tb) as a storage in place of Ente.io, but I do like that there is a cloud storage just in case.

If anyone has any thoughts on Ente.io, I would say use the trial period and mess with it and the PC app. You got nothing to lose. But I feel it is worth it for e2e encryption. In regards to my previous statement about hte 24 digit key, its actually a series of words. You enter this once into the PC app to sync as well as the cloud/website login. Then you are golden. Let me know if anyone else has questions. Besides the limited free account, $5 for 100gb and $10 for 500gb. While it is much more expensive (not as much as others) when compared to Google Photos storage ($3 for 200gb a month) I feel it is worth the piece of mind that your photos and videos are yours alone and no one else can see them unless you share it. They offer a family plan, but not sure what that costs.