Switching from Google Photos: what are the alternatives?
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I already made this video, about a year ago. Problem is: none of ther alternatives I recommended at the time are still alive, they all closed down. That's the issue nowadays, small companies can do amazing work, but in this "cloud storage" space, they tend to not last that long. So, why, and how can you replace Google photos ?
Setup your own nextcloud server : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wnhkxR-Hy8
Secure your nextcloud server : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0mS1z8Hmhw
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### Prime Photos
If you don't care about using another tech giant's services, your best bet is Amazon Prime Photos.
This service is available to all Amazon Prime members, so you also get a video streaming service, and same day shipping from Amazon, if that's your thing.
Prime Photos offers unilimited photo storage at full resolution, and 5Gb of free storage for your videos. You can upgrade that to 100Gigs for 2€ a month, or 1Tb for 10€ a month.
It's got an iOS and Android app for automatically syncing your photos to your account, and a suitable web interface to sift through your pictures, share them, sort them into albums, etc...
You also get some basic editing tools, like cropping, applying filters, changing the focus, and tweaking contrast, colors, etc...
Once your photos are synced from your phone to your account, you can get them on your desktop using the Windows or Mac OS application. There is no Linux option, however, so you'll be stuck on the web interface here. There is a paid solution here, called Expandrive, that supports Linux and lets you access a lot of Cloud storage options on the desktop, but it's pretty expensive, and might not be for everyone.
All in all, if you're not anti-amazon, or if you just don't care about using a tech giant's service, Amazon Prime Photos might be your best bet to replace Google Photos.
But what if you don't want to use another tech giant's services? What if you'd prefer to go the more private route? Well, in that case, your alternative is Nextcloud.
### Nextcloud
Nextcloud is basically your own personal cloud. It doesn't only handle photos, but it also can manage your documents, your notes, tasks, calendars, and even email, or many, many other applications. It can even come with a free online office suite, like Collabora, or OnlyOffice.
Think of it as some kind of Office Online, but that isn't hosted, or accessible by any big name corporation.
Nextcloud also offers a mobile app for iOS and Android, to auto upload your pictures to the cloud, and you can download these back to WIndows, Mac OS, or Linux using the Nextcloud desktop application, so you can get all your photos and videos in sync between all your devices.
Nextcloud is open source, and can be either self hosted, or hosted in the cloud.
Basically, it all amounts to: do you want to have your Nextcloud server in your home, where no one can access it, or is it too much of a hassle to handle a in-house server, and you'd prefer having something hosted somewhere else, with the advantage of backups, online help, and support.
Setting up Nextcloud is pretty easy, especially if you're not adverse to Snaps. I already have a few videos on the channel on how to setup Nextcloud on a server, whether it's self hosted or in the cloud, so I'm not going to repeat all the steps here, just click on the card up to see how to do it.
Just to give you an overview, here are the main steps:
- Pick a Linux distribution for your server: I'd recommend Ubuntu, as it's the easiest to get the Nextcloud Snap package installed.
- Install the distro
- Install the SNAP: sudo snap install nextcloud
- Get your server's IP address using curl ifconfig.me in the terminal
- Connect with any web browser to that IP address
- Use the web interface to create your user
DONE
If you want some extra security, I'd encourage you to also buy a domain name, point it towards your Nextcloud server, and secure it using HTTPS. Unsure how to do it? I have another video on that exact topic, check out the card up to.
It can seem a bit tricky, but honestly, it's a very simple process, even for one such as me, which is neither a developer, or a system administrator. I had 0 experience with setting up servers before doing it, and it was a breeze.