6mo ago

Suggestions for file sync / android backup / sharing software (nextcloud alternative)

Hello everyone,

Since my daughter was born I am searching for a solution to share pictures of our child with my wife and create a copy of each smartphones photos and other files (documents). At first I tried nextcloud, but there is a lot of overhead and the administration feels kind of complex for what I need.

Anyone else having some input on which software to use?

So my main goal is:

Software running on raspberry pi (preferable docker). Has abilities like shared folder where pictures and documents get uploaded from multiple users and can be viewed (collaboration editing is not needed). Automatically copy files from smartphone (android) to raspberry from selected folder for a simple redundancy.

39 comments

Syncthing may fit the bill.
- I use syncthing for backups including some phone files, but I'm not sure this would be good.
  Syncthing devs clearly don't want this app used as a sync-and-archive tool so all phones would have all copies and any phone can permanently delete any file. I wouldn't trust that.
  (Yes, there is a roundabout way, I do it too, but it is prone to errors and sync issues)
  I second immich and backup. immich can archive as you want, and Syncthing can make backups of files.
  
  I second immich
  I third Immich
  
  Is the roundabout way file versioning? Cause its been pretty stable for me, just toss a device with lots of space on the cluster and crank up the versions to your hearts content
- personnaly i have try a lot Syncthing at different times and all times I had synchronization problems in the first minutes of testing with few files (between android lineageos and/or two linux desktop)
  (fw, ip, setup, are "fine", so i dropped and go back with nextcloud/rsync/kdeconnect -_-)
  
  I have syncthing set up between my phone, tablet, and desktop. I've only noticed it not syncing once, but as soon as I opened the app on my phone it scanned and synced, so it just hadn't run in the background yet.

I've used Seafile for years just for this. I haven't ran that on pi, but on virtual machine it runs pretty smoothly and android client is pretty hassle free.
- Came to say the same. Unlike Syncthing, it all syncs to the server and only downloads to your various devices when you want it to. Vital for my small SSD on MacBook Pro. Syncthing can do similar but requires individually selecting files and folders to ignore, which I did not want to do.

@zipping2583 @selfhosted
perhaps #immich work for that.
https://immich.app/
- I went for immich. It's awesome! :) Looking forward on seeing what it will become!

I'll be the contrary one: I tried a lot of things and ended up, eventually, going back to Nextclolud, simply because it's extendable and can add more shit to do things as you need it.
File sync and images may be all you need now, but let's say in the future you want to dump Google Docs, or add calendar and contact syncing, or notes, or to do lists, or hosting your own bookmark sync app, or integrating webmail, or....
It's got a lot of flaws, to be sure, but the ability to make it essentially do every task you might want cloud syncing with to at least a level of 'good enough', has pretty much kept me on it.
- You are probably right... I did spend two hours today trying to get it running in my current docker environment and couldn't get it running... That's when I decided to look for somethinfg else...
  
  Happy to share the docker-compose.yml I'm using for my setup. It includes OnlyOffice so that I can edit files internally, Google Dcos style. You can skip that section and remove the oonet network definition if you don't need/want it. You'll want to change the volume mount paths (or define volumes if you'd rather not use bind mounts) and change the 'supersecretpasswordhere' to something actually uh, secure.
  Anyway, file is at https://thecloud.home.uncomfortable.business/s/32HoxHajW33PRbf
  
  What part were you getting hung up on?
- I use nextcloud to sync our photos, with the memory's add-on and mobile app you can even have collections.
- Nextcloud can't do two-way sync on Android. At all. That's like core functionality for the product IMHO and there's a feature request open I think. When I found that out, I basically spit out my coffee. It's fine if you just want to upload photos you take, that kinda works (but my god is it fragile).
  Nextcloud is pretty good at quite a few things, including extensibility, but having some omissions in functionality that boggle the mind.
  
  Not saying you're wrong, but what doesn't work right? I haven't noticed any behavior that seems wrong to me. Usually interact with nextcloud via the nextcloud section that gets added by the client in the file picker/file manager on the OnePlus Nord I'm using.

I have found synching to be very useful for making copies of files across devices. I have it setup to mirror photos from my phone, photos from my wife's phone, and various other things (to-do lists for todo.txt, notes and shopping lists for obsidian... stuff like that) back to my desktop and my NAS. You can set it to do one-way sync (which is more like a backup) or two way sync (where changes anywhere are propagated to everywhere else).
As others have said, it's not really a true backup solution, but handy to have immediately accessible copies of what's on your phone in case of phone loss or damage.
For photo viewing and sharing, I am more or less pointing the photo sharing app on my NAS to the photos I sync from phone. They all get dropped into an "inbox" when first synced and then can be organized from there.
You may also want an actual backup solution. There are quite a few and that's a different topic. The reason I bring it up, though, is that simply mirroring what's currently on device is not considered a real backup by most people, and for good reason.

Immich but it has a lot of breaking changes, good news is that going stable is on their road map for this year. They also joined FUTO.
- Is there an Immich Android app that auto upload pictures?
  
  There is. It seemed like every time I opened it, either it or the server needed to be updated though.
  
  https://f-droid.org/packages/app.alextran.immich/

I'm liking ente for photos at the moment.
immich had too many breaking changes.
- It can even be self-hosted https://help.ente.io/self-hosting/

Syncthing like others suggested is probably the way to go.
But if you want more options you can do a lot with WebDAV. https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-configure-webdav-access-with-apache-on-ubuntu-18-04

I chimed in on the vote for Seafile on this thread. But I think it's worth trying NextcloudPi image to see if that does what you want. I've been presently surprised by how well it works compared to my experience with the AIO image.

39 comments