Using Syncthing as a Google Photos and Google Drive alternative

Thanks for sharing. I’m sure others will also fine the idea useful. :slightly_smiling_face:

Syncthing + PhotoPrism can be a nice alternative to Google Photos. I’ve used both separately but haven’t taken the time to combine the two.

To be fair, photos that have been backed up to Google Photos (https://photos.google.com/) can be deleted from a phone/table while still being accessible on-demand. It can be used on a per-photo basis or automatically for all photos visible to the Google Photos app.

The AI part of Google Photos is buried in its settings. It can learn to recognize faces (including pets) and also search for objects and places contained in photos.

Target requirements 1, 2 and 3 are no problem. There are a few ways to achieve it including:

Item 4 is the difficult one if you’re looking for an open-source/freeware solution other than commercial cloud solutions such as Dropbox, OneDrive, Box, Google Drive, pCloud, etc.

Depending on personal preferences for graphical interfaces, Syncthing’s Ignoring Files feature can be used to accomplish the selective-sync you’re asking for. For example, add a pattern that flags a particular file for syncing on the phone and remove it (and the file) when they’re no longer required:

!motorcycle-repair-manual.pdf
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While not as easy as ticking a checkbox in a GUI, it does have some advantages including:

  • Whether a folder has 1 or 1,000,000 files makes no difference. Populating a graphical widget with a list of thousands of files with a checkbox for each one doesn’t scale well (the reason why Dropbox and other cloud services all recommend limiting the number of files in a given folder).
  • Easier to specify a group of files/directories when they share a common pattern in their filenames compared to individually clicking multiple checkboxes in a GUI (a multi-select drop down menu isn’t obvious to most users and harder to use on a touchscreen).