General Two-way photo backup/sync from iOs to Synology

[sultanbrunei]

Hi,

I have been using Drive app for some years to do a photo album two-way sync photo of my Android devices.
Therefore everytime I deleted a photo from my gallery, the same photo would be deleted from the NAS as well. This also applies vice versa.

Now that I have moved to an iPhone, I seems to find trouble to do this.
I managed to create a backup/sync task in the drive app, however when I chose the local folder it looks like the ios won't let me chose the folder that I want to sync to my NAS.

Does anyone know any kind of solution that I can apply for an automated two-way backup/sync task of my ios gallery to my synology NAS?
Thank you

 

[fredbert]

Welcome to the forum.

Haven't used Android for a while. So you are saying that: in the mobile Drive app on Android you can select the local folder when setting up a 2-way sync task. And that folder can be the one used for the local photos library?

As you say, on iOS Drive app, when creating a 2-way sync task, the local folder is not definable: the local folder is created in Drive-specific local storage. I'm wondering if Apple's Photos library, being specifically managed by their app, will identify and process copied in files (i.e. files sync'ed from the NAS). There are apps that can backup the Apple Photos library to other places: Synology Photos Mobile app with Synology Photos is one option, and I use this. I also make daily backups using FileBrowser Pro. But these don't sync back updates and deletions from the NAS.

One reason I have mostly stopped using Apple Photos is the closing of Photo Stream to create (albeit reduced quality) sync's between iOS devices and desktop OS. They now expect people to buy more iCloud storage and keep libraries online. Using Synology Photos is better for me as I also use a camera and I can just upload the files to folders that are tracked by Synology Photos.


FYI if you are new to iOS then you might not know that you can choose which image formats the Camera app saves. I think the default is HEIC and HEVC, H.265, but you can change this to AVC, H.264, and save yourself some aggro with the recent Synology stopping creating thumbnails in Synology Photos from H.265 files on the NAS... see DSM 7.2.2 posts across the Web!

 

[EAZ1964]

Synology photos mobile app has this functionality or at least comes close to it.

select auto backup and set the delete options the way you prefer.

 

[fredbert]

select auto backup and set the delete options the way you prefer.

I don’t see any delete options in the auto-backup. But I guess you refer to Delete Settings in the app Settings: delete in app will delete on NAS and optionally, in iOS Photos.

 

[EAZ1964]

That is a correct guess

 

[sultanbrunei]

Welcome to the forum.

Haven't used Android for a while. So you are saying that: in the mobile Drive app on Android you can select the local folder when setting up a 2-way sync task. And that folder can be the one used for the local photos library?

As you say, on iOS Drive app, when creating a 2-way sync task, the local folder is not definable: the local folder is created in Drive-specific local storage. I'm wondering if Apple's Photos library, being specifically managed by their app, will identify and process copied in files (i.e. files sync'ed from the NAS). There are apps that can backup the Apple Photos library to other places: Synology Photos Mobile app with Synology Photos is one option, and I use this. I also make daily backups using FileBrowser Pro. But these don't sync back updates and deletions from the NAS.

One reason I have mostly stopped using Apple Photos is the closing of Photo Stream to create (albeit reduced quality) sync's between iOS devices and desktop OS. They now expect people to buy more iCloud storage and keep libraries online. Using Synology Photos is better for me as I also use a camera and I can just upload the files to folders that are tracked by Synology Photos.


FYI if you are new to iOS then you might not know that you can choose which image formats the Camera app saves. I think the default is HEIC and HEVC, H.265, but you can change this to AVC, H.264, and save yourself some aggro with the recent Synology stopping creating thumbnails in Synology Photos from H.265 files on the NAS... see DSM 7.2.2 posts across the Web!

Yes. in mobile drive app on Android I can select the local folder when setting up a 2-way sync task, so that the local nas folder syncs perfectly the way I wanted to with the folders on Android. And the 2-way sync works instaneously.

How do I change the image formats the camera app saves?

I have just tried using synology photos, however I found it a bit odd that the app forces me to save all my backups in an exclusive new folder called \photo . Can I change this to a folder location which I choose by myself?

Synology photos mobile app has this functionality or at least comes close to it.

select auto backup and set the delete options the way you prefer.

Are there any way to choose the local nas folder?
Synology photos forced me to use a home folder called \photo

 

[EAZ1964]

If you use the app, synology photos must be used as well.
The difference with Drive is that you need to follow the “Synology photos” conventions, like it or not (I do not like it to be honest, some of them make no sense).
You need to create the shared space, and set it to the local folder where you want your photos, or use default /photo.
Then setup the backup on photos mobile and specify the target folder, which is under backup settings.
Maybe the kb.synology.com can help you in more detail.

Personally, I use apple icloud for automatic phone backup, and use the iphone gallery to select photos one a month to copy photos I want to keep to the nas using photos mobile. There is a possibility to add folders and copy wherever I need them to be.