What about using Automator or rsync to copy the file structure thats in the local photos library bundle/package? This enabled me to get up and running and now my entire 500GB+ iCloud Photo Library is synced to my Synology. After installing, you will have an iCloud Drive folder in your Windows Explorer. In my experience, this was not needed- but it does not hurt running a final "integrity" check. Updated June 2022: These are still the proper steps to back up your iCloud Photo Library. If your Google account runs out of space during the transfer, not all of your items will be transferred. It also leaves the "Moments" library on "Synology Drive" for their personal collections. And yes, download them as well. But, I minimize its use (free tier) because it is another monthly fee, my family storage requirements have grown past what they offer, and I want the ability to have control of my data independent of any platform. First off, it takes a few days before they make the data available to you. Click to select a folder. You can request to transfer a copy of photos and videos you store in iCloud Photos to Google Photos. I thought i would optimize my photos on my iphone and keep the originals in the cloud, that was after i found out i cannot download them from the cloud unless its one at a time. If not, consider it a good time to start! Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts, icloudpd doesnt work if advanced data protection is turned on. In the config file there are two ways to download photos. I am in a near identical situation to you guys here, 320gb library nearly full on my 512 MacBook pro. When setting it up, you will want to choose which folders to sync and turn off the little check that says "create SynologyDrive folder." I think it didn't like my old password used for the databases anymore.. Hyper Backup backs up your configuration with each run. I found a simple solution. (Image credit: Christine Romero-Chan / iMore), How to back up iCloud Photo Library to your Mac's hard drive, Back up iCloud Photo Library to Mac HD by showing: Launch Photos, Back up iCloud Photo Library to Mac HD by showing: Click Photos, Click Preferences, Back up iCloud Photo Library to Mac HD by showing: Click iCloud, click Download Originals to this Mac, How to back up your iCloud Photo Library content to an external drive, Back up iCloud Photo Library to Mac HD by showing: Click the Finder icon, Back up Photos Library manually by showing: Click Pictures in the Finder side bar, Back up Photos Library manually by showing: Click and drag your Photos Library to your external hard drive, Back up portions of your iCloud Photo Library by showing: Hover over the Export option, ack up portions of your iCloud Photo Library by showing: Select to Export Unmodified Originals or as-is, Back up portions of your iCloud Photo Library by showing: Input a file name and subfolder format, Back up portions of your iCloud Photo Library by showing: Click Export, How to make an online backup of your iCloud Photo Library, How to back up iCloud Photo Library to Mac's HD, How to back up iCloud Photo Library content to an XHD, How to make an online backup of iCloud Photo Library, external library to backup your iCloud Photo Library, Apple VR headset won't require an iPhone, will have "in-air typing", iPhone 15 Plus leak shows slimmer bezels, Dynamic Island, USB-C, Five dead Apple products that deserve a 2023 revamp: iPod, iMac Pro and more, iPhone 15 Pro is getting an upgrade for the LiDAR sensor, Read everything from iPhone to Apple Watch, Mags delivered straight to your door or device. When it comes to backing up iCloud photos, these are the best solutions possible. So now I have the following setup; I take or import a picture on my iPhone. It's got two hard drive slots. Visit our corporate site (opens in new tab). When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Thus, on any computer or mobile, a file can get dropped in to this admin "Family" folder and it is instantly accessible on all devices in the "Shared with me" folder of Synology Drive. I will look into both. We do not use the "auto import" function of Moments (or Photo Station) because we do not like the file structure it produces. Don't worry to much about that as the container will attempt to run the sync after 6 hours again. I was about to enable it. If you transfer an album with more than 20,000 photos, the additional photos are still transferred but are not added to the album. You asked about moving from iCloud to NAS, but this is just a copy. u/Alternative-Mud-4479 's super helpful instructions were written in the comments of a post about Apple Photos library hosting, and were bound to be lost to future idiots who may be searching for the same help that I was. 2. Then, each family member downloaded the Synology Drive Desktop Client from here: https://www.synology.com/en-us/support/download. While her main speciality is the iPhone, she also covers Apple Watch, iPad, and Mac when needed. Drive is a sync tool and you can backup with it as well. We each then pointed our Synology Drive desktop and documents folders at our respective "empty" Apple user home folders. Download the files that you need from Synology NAS to your local computer. Some contentincluding shared albums, smart albums, photo stream content, live photos, some metadata, and photos and videos stored in other folders or locationsis not transferred at all. Some data and formats available in iCloud Photossuch as Smart Albums, Live Photos, or some RAW filesmay not be available when you transfer your content to another service. Drag Photos Library to a location on your external storage device. Otherwise I would offload all my photos and stop paying Apple for 2TB of storage. It retains a full copy of your photos in iCloud (accessible on iCloud.com as well). So since Im already paying Apple, why would I want another backup? You have a Google account to use Google Photos. Now, the magic, I go into the Apple Photos preferences menu and uncheck "Importing: Copy Items to the Photos library." You are using an out of date browser. Downloaded images retain exif data and are neatly placed into a folder structure that you can define. If you are subscribed to iCloud, and you want to move your photos to NAS, your synology photo apps mobile back up functionality works as expected; just choose backup all photos and let it have access to all your photos then your whole iCloud will start to be downloaded to the NAS. I use iCloud photo library so i can view the pics on my apple tv but absolutely want to have a local backup of full res photos. Create an account on our community. This service is available to customers in over 240 countries around the world for transfers to Google Photos. Next, I backup. https://www.reddit.com/r/synology/comments/10hw71g/comment/j5f8bd8/. I do not use snapshots, but I know that is popular. If someone has an alternative for backing up a large amount of iCloud photos to a NAS Id be interested in hearing it. I already have a Synology NAS for other backups and as a general storage system, so I wanted to find a way for it to always have an up-to-date copy of my Library. The thing that gets me is the way iCloud Photo surfaces old photos on my Home Screen and Photos widget. There are a few differences. Is there a reason against using the Synology Photos app to do this..? Thanks for pointing it out! You can use smart folders in Apple Photos to "see" which are "referenced" and which have been imported recently from iCloud from your mobile devices. I use Nextcloud and when activating the auto upload feature you can make it upload the entire library first, That windows iCloud app defaults to C drive to download the whole thing. It's also possible that the data you were expecting isn't in a format that can be transferred or it may have been held only for a very short time and is no longer on our servers. Copyright 2023 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. 2. First, a huge thank you to the community here. Fill out each tab as follows: General: Give it a name, run as your user. I'm not sure what your budget is. The container will quit after it has pulled all new photos/videos from iCloud. DS file functions as a document provider, allowing files to be directly accessed and imported from other cloud storage providers (e.g., iCloud or another Synology NAS with DS file installed on your iOS device). 2. Isn't a trailing ' &' enough to put the command to run in a job independent from the effective terminal connection? I suggest opening a separate thread for that if you need peeps to share their experience. So far, the most reliable back-up solution I have come across. If you have iCloud Photos turned on then your photos will not be included in an iCloud Backup. Your Google account has enough storage available to complete the transfer. iMore is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Otherwise, consider backing up to an external drive. iPhone / iPad. Before you request to transfer your iCloud Photos content, please make sure: If you add more photos or videos to iCloud Photos before your data transfer starts, youll need additional space in your Google account to complete it. By default, Photos Library is stored in the Pictures folder of your home folder. Your Google accounts total storage space applies to content transferred from iCloud Photos to Google Photos. Maybe someone has some ideas on how to improve this docker image. Once done, you will have a local copy of your documents and desktop, and after sync, they will be on your Synology which is easily accessible from the Synology Drive App on any mobile platform. I use a second Synology off site and use it strictly as a hyperbackup vault. Was that what you were thinking of with the spare Mac? Don't want to back up your entire library? Contact the vendor for additional information. What I have done is moved to using my Synology to holding almost all my photos / videos / files while still retaining the smooth feel of using my Apple products. Your Mac will now download full-resolution copies of all your images to your Mac's hard drive, stored inside your Photos app library. I am not 100% sure that there are no problems from the home nas to the remote one. To run as a scheduled back-up solution, once all images have been downloaded: Also a note here that if you are running the container for the first time, you'll need to go through the proper authentification using 2FA. 7) Click the "connect . Also, this will work even if your phone is not connected to the network with your NAS and you don't have your NAS exposed externally or through a VPN. There was a problem. Christine Romero-Chan was formerly a Senior Editor for iMore. One way to use a Synology device is to back up an iCloudPhoto Library. Wait until the initial . My Synology maxed out at about 10Mbps download, a fraction of my available speed, You should see current status: running with no data as the output, Turn off SSH on the Synology (remember to hit apply), Change log level if desired in the task settings by editing your scheduled task and replacing the last word (info) with error, Limit the comparisons to recent photos only if youd like by adding -recent 1000 to the end of your configuration (you can change the number if desired), Downloading iCloud Photo Library to your Synology for Backup. I'm afraid I don't know enough to answer your questions now . You do still only have one copy on the Nas which is a worry. Click on iCloud Drive. Ok, I have done several tests and I have ended thinking that this is not a "mature" solution, at least not for the moment. iCloud Backup is a one-way backup of your current photo library on your device. Connect your iPhone to computer > Click Phone Backup on the homepage of FoneTool > Mouse over to Selective Backup and click Get Started.. Also, I tried downloading all of my images using Apple's recommended method by requesting a copy of my data. The Mac Mini downloads a copy to its Photos Library. There are a few command line scripts that can talk directly to your iCloud account, but they all looked a bit fragile I want a setup that is going to work reliably and doesnt require maintenance. Select the photo library you want to back up. Start . suijiu 1 mo. (Note: Why isnt this enough backup? One other thing, on my Synology in Synology Drive Admin, I turn on versioning and have added my "photo" folder as well under Team folders. A few notes: For #1, Python was already installed on the two NAS I tested on, but it's possible it was included as part of a separate package? Couple of pro tips: You can use Synology Drive folders in the Apple Files app on mobile but you need to enable it. Hover over the Export option. r/synology Started with a DS1813+ from EBay two months ago. Ah. Create an account to follow your favorite communities and start taking part in conversations. Those photos can only be recovered by restoring your iPhone from your iCloud backup. Then install the photos app on your IPhone and let photos copy all your pictures to the Nas itself. Click Create > Scheduled Task > User-defined Script. The wiki on github explains that pretty well. I believe I paid around $500 for the NAS box and the 3 TB drive a few years back. Docker noob here. The permissions for your Photos library may conflict with those for the Time Machine backup. I am a Linux user as well and am just flabbergasted by how the DSM is just fantastic. Find this folder, select files and directly backup them to NAS. If you have another cloud-based drive mounted in Finder, click on that. 2. . 1. The usbshare1 is not a folder, it is the operation system name for the usb disk itself. On my study user, I have copied the photo library to my external drive and set "download full res images to this Mac". One is all photos based on their added date (the date added to your library in photos on icloud) back to the "date_from" date in config.ini. I'm using TimeMachine on both iMacs (and free Veeam for Windows for our PCs/laptops), all backing up to my DS-, If you live in the US of A it is a good plan but for us non-Trumpian Empire folks not so much. Tap or click on Delete to do this. Step 3. For those interested, here is my compose. Youll receive an email notification of your transfer request and another email when your transfer is complete. Easily connect your Synology NAS to cloud services including BackBlaze B2, Dropbox, Google Drive, and Microsoft OneDrive to combine the different . I didn't need to install manually, but YMMV. The free 5GB individually is actually enough. You end up with exactly the same photos on your synology volume as you do in iCloud. Open a browser, enter icloud.com and sign in, and upload the files from the local computer to iCloud, your Synology iCloud photo sync task will be started. Once again, Apple uses iCloud to achieve this. A few years ago, I decided to go all-in with iCloud Photos. Well it basically boils down to wanting an independent backup: what if I lose access to my iCloud account? Step 1. Supported transfer combinations are basically endless! We use this time to verify that the request was made by you, and to make the transfer. I found a simple solution. To start a request to transfer the photos and videos in iCloud Photos: Youll be asked to sign in to your Google account to start the transfer. Everything still works fine. Then, you can access your NAS files in the same way as you would local hard drive data. I want to do this too but the Photos integration across all Apple devices, plus the memories, etc make it difficult to leave. You can export individual images and videos to your external drive. It's very confusing to me. Migrate Apple ICloud Photos to a Synology & Qnap NAS Posted on 24 Oct 2021 Also Read. But my C: doesnt have 2TB of space and mapping iCloud folder to a network drive on windows 10 isnt allowed. Slated to end on June 1, Google announced a bit ago that it would finally be closing out its notable unlimited Photos backup. If you have one of the best external hard drives just laying around, you should consider using it for making an external library to backup your iCloud Photo Library. Christine also enjoys coffee, food, photography, mechanical keyboards, and spending as much time with her new daughter as possible. This can. Please visit NVD for updated vulnerability entries, which include CVSS scores once they are available. upload photos to a cloud service like Google Photos or iCloud; Option 1: Whole Computer Backup. Thanks. I didn't write the actual downloader python script, and it uses a plaintext keyring within the container to hold your iCloud credentials so proceed at your own risk. Schedule: your preference, I chose once a month. What I love about this container is the fact that you can also run scheduled backups in the future. I am writing this post because I want to give those who are considering or approaching Synology from my perspective a clear path. It gets uploaded to iCloud Photos. Go to the File menu. I then go to the Apple Photos File menu and select "Import." You must be a member in order to leave a comment. DX unit can't work without the main DS one. cd ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/. In other words, they will not be stored in iCloud twice -- once in iCloud Photos and once in iCloud Backup. I use it to move files between drives at home too because it's so fast and accurate. Realize that you have to delete twice because the first time they are just placed in a "Recently deleted" folder on your Apple Photos iCloud. Well done Synology. It is an amazing device, and I am awestruck at how well it is designed. I have fiber and 10gbe and anything I download from Apple is absurdly slow. This is done by watching the deleted folder in iCloud, so if a photo goes missing without appearing in your deleted folder it will remain. Posting here in case it comes in handy to someone else. You are using an out of date browser. Once that was done, though, everything is working fine. I need to point you to two great blog posts to read: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2017/05/03/how-to-photos-for-mac-referenced-mode/, https://www.macworld.com/article/3445482/how-to-selectively-choose-what-photos-sync-in-photos-for-mac.html. - In Photos, under Preferences/General, check "Metadata: Include location information for published item". Terabytes of storage on hand means your workflow is never constrained by storage capacity. When my laptop went to sleep, it seemed to break the SSH connection, which interrupted icloudpd. All you have to do to back up your data to iCloud is copy it into this folder, paste it, or drag it there. They then turned off iCloud for desktop and documents. Sucks that it doesnt do it in the background. Huge thanks again to u/Alternative-Mud-4479 !! However, an acceptable solution for me has been to use DSPhoto on my iPhone to automatically back up my photos to my NAS by setting up a geofence (sounds harder than it is) - this really works great. The kids create incredible amounts of digital content even after it has been cut, scaled, and compressed. A flexible and comprehensive management tool that allows photo backup and browsing by chronological order or folder structure. Both unlikely, but it can happen. The best way to back up the images and video in iCloud Photo Library is to make sure you're downloading all your content onto your Mac. Please refresh the page and try again. So I decided to make this post to give it greater visibility. This process is rather lengthy so just let it run through. How to back up iCloud Photo Library - The cloud-based sync service <br>Apple's iCloud Photo Library is a great. Press Export. This was you have your photos backed up online in 2 places. Turned out it was just missing the RAM (and fix already applied). When she isnt writing about Apple, Christine can often be found at Disneyland in Anaheim, California, as she is a passholder and obsessed with all things Disney, especially Star Wars. Run as a scheduled task in Synology to keep a local backup of your photos and videos. Note: Synology Cloud Station Suite is not supported on DSM 7.0 and above. Reddit and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better experience. If you go this route, it's highly recommended to set up bi-weekly reminders for the following steps to keep the Photos library backed up regularly. I did consider that when I was first installing this, but I went this route since it was just installing some python packages within a venv, so it's entirely self-contained and not modifying any system bits. However, as great as iCloud Photo Library is on your favorite iPhone, iPad, and Mac, it's not failproof (nothing really is). Registration is free, easy and fast! Once transferred to Google, the filenames of albums and videos start with "Copy of.. Thoughts on product management, apps, gadgets, cycling and photography. A command-line tool to download all your iCloud photos. Or Apple loses my data somehow? You can find the files to build the docker image yourself here: https://github.com/jake-b/icloud_photos_downloader/tree/master/docker. You probably shouldnt empty the deleted photos folder more frequently than you run this script or it will leave photos on your Synology that youve removed from iCloud, Synology with plenty of extra storage space, Your Synologys local IP or domain (something like .local), Familiarity with ssh, the terminal in general, and other computer inner workings, Allow SSH through your Synology firewall (only if your firewall is on), Make sure Encrypted Terminal Service appears on one of the entries with an action of allow, Enter the command `ssh @ as in ssh sam@harddrive.local', Enter your synology password when prompted, Youll see a slightly different command prompt, Check that it is by typing python -V into your terminal and pressing enter, The result needs to be at least 3.6 (Mine was 3.8.8 which I believe is included with DSM 7.1), In order to install more Python packages, we need to install an up-to-date version of pip, the Python package manager, I followed this great guide to enable pip, Run the following commands in your terminal, sudo python3 -m pip install --upgrade pip, The order of this step is very important we need to install WHEEL first, Run ~/.local/bin/icloud username , Enter your real iCloud password when prompted app-specific passwords do NOT work because it is the API, Two factor users will get prompted for your code. Level 10. Command: ~/.local/bin/icloudpd -d -u --set-exif-datetime --auto-delete --no-progress-bar --threads-num 2 --log-level info, Open Synology > Control Panel > Task Scheduler > Settings, Check save output results and give it a folder that you are ok with filling up, Highlight the upgrade task by clicking on it and then click Run, Select Action > View Result to see terminal output, Make sure that the current status says Normal (0), Highlight the download task and then click Run, This will download your entire iCloud Photo Library dont do this when you need your bandwidth. 15GB is of Google Photos, but when i look at the amount of Got it running. 442,769 points. Realize that when you do this that the Synology NAS will "chew" on the files for days and days indexing and making thumbnails. Select either Export # Photos or Video or Export Unmodified Original for # Photos or Videos. Set up a spare Mac Mini to do this sync regularly to an external drive, and replicate that result over to my NAS. SynoForum.com is an unofficial Synology forum for NAS owners and enthusiasts. I took a quick look at Github and this repository seems popular: https://github.com/gilesknap/gphotos-sync. For Mac/iOS apps the create their own storage/folders there will be a folder in here for them. Second, they strip ALL exif data off your images, which is a big no no.. Avoid this method to be honest, it was a waste of my time. Depending on how big your iCloud Photo Library is, it may take a while just be patient. There are other things you can offload from iCloud such as mail, contacts, etcbut I found that once files/photos/videos were offloaded to our Synology that we just did not need to pay for iCloud storage anymore. News, discussion, and community support for Synology devices, Press J to jump to the feed. In setting everything up on my Synology, I drew from this community, the YouTuber mydodads, and the excellent writeup at wundertech.net. Keeping a local backup of your photo library is mighty important. It will take a long time but its the simplest approach. We work hard to maintain accuracy and consistency, so the data associated with your account and our responses to data requests may change as our means of storage and collection change. I just got a NAS and my method was probably not the fastest or most elegant, but I simply downloaded my 300GB of photos from my browser on iCloud.com. I do use iCloud. Heres how it works. Whenever possible, photos are transferred with their albums. Step 2. At $0.99 per month, you can enjoy 50 GB storage for your photos, videos, and files to back up the data on your devices. Ive configured the Mac Mini and Synology to wake up for a few hours every day to do this and so far its working really well. Remember, you can never have too many backups, and again, it's much better to be safe than sorry. She has been writing about technology, specifically Apple, for over a decade at a variety of websites. Additionally, the 128GB iPhone I have does not have enough storage to hold all of my photos/videos. Take note of env variable skip_check=false. Wait for it to copy over. Is there a similar app for Google photos? Some posts say that it requires Photo Station installed as well but this is not the case. Direct transfer between services, devices & NAS. ), but I did want to find a way to have a secondary backup solution that doesnt rely on Photos or iCloud. 1813 model about to be local backup! might investigate a Synology . If you add, update, or delete content after the transfer starts, or if your images and videos are still uploading, these changes or additions might not be included in the transfer. The other way is by album, but also constrained by the added . Since my MacBook is usually closed / not plugged in and doesnt have a full copy of my photo library, I bought a usedMac Mini and hooked it up to an external 2 TB drive. If you cancel your transfer request before its complete, and somephotos or videos have already been transferred, they remain in Google Photos. [duplicate]I hope you found a solution that worked for you :) The Content (except music & images) i.