Ready made packages are available: For DSM 7.x icloud_photo_station-0.3.0.spk. I tried the iCloud windows app but that wont let me remap the iCloud photo folder to my NAS and my C:\ is much less than 2 TB. 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. It may not display this or other websites correctly. Second: Documents and Desktop. Was that what you were thinking of with the spare Mac? So far, the most reliable back-up solution I have come across. You can open your home folder by choosing Go > Home from the Finder menu bar. I also have set up time machine to copy the external drive. Apple makes no representations regarding third-party website accuracy or reliability. Lastly, I had my admin account create a "Family" folder on its Synology Drive which is shared to all the family. They both natively support B2. Set the route to save downloaded iCloud backup photos. Click " Photo Backup Not Enabled " and then " Enable Photo Backup " to allow the Photos app to access the storage. In hindsight, Im not sure what I was expecting: the cheap miniPC was temperamental, Windows never stopped updating and Apple iCloud for Windows seemed well not their main focus, lets put it that way. 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. . Any tips for a guy whos been pulling his hair out for the past 3 hours? You have a Google account to use Google Photos. Here are a few ways that you can back up your iCloud photos using your greatest Mac. For some reason this defaults to the SMS fallback (if youre still not using MFA on iCloud, you really should be), Return to the DSM web user interface but do not disconnect your terminal yet, Create a dedicated folder for your photos, Copy the path to your folder out to a note somewhere and save it for the next step, Remember that you need to add /volume1 (or a different number if you have more than one volume) to the beginning of your path, Return to your terminal. Keeping a local backup of your photo library is mighty important. After installing, you will have an iCloud Drive folder in your Windows Explorer. It may not display this or other websites correctly. 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. Get the best of iMore in your inbox, every day! SynoForum.com is an unofficial Synology forum for NAS owners and enthusiasts. You can find the files to build the docker image yourself here: https://github.com/jake-b/icloud_photos_downloader/tree/master/docker. I export them in unmodified original format to prevent any quality loss. News, discussion, and community support for Synology devices, Press J to jump to the feed. iCloud Photos can feel like a backup. Good news: If you already use a service to back up your hard drive and you've already synced your full iCloud Photo Library to your Mac, it's easy to back it all up there too. Please visit NVD for updated vulnerability entries, which include CVSS scores once they are available. These instructions assume youre using a Mac, but Windows users should be able to accomplish this with WSL (Windows Systems for Linux) terminal commands. I do not delete any new photos or videos that I may have accumulated since the export. Note that this is not just a one time copy. If you Just a question for now. And if you really want to be on the safe side, you can run the above compose with skip_check=false AGAIN. Hope my solution helps other lost souls. 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. Huge thanks again to u/Alternative-Mud-4479 !! 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. Only content stored in iCloud Photos* is transferred. Because of the way this script tracks (and removes) deleted photos, it must be run at a frequency less than 30 days deleted photos are pruned from iCloud after 30 days. might investigate a Synology . Still was prepared for resistor and transistor fix. If I am understanding correctly, I don't think there is a way, without exporting the full size copies to an external (which is what I do monthly). The unofficial Synology forum for NAS owners and enthusiasts. If you have another cloud-based drive mounted in Finder, click on that. As it has often been said, the "cloud" is just someone else's computer. Step 2. https://github.com/boredazfcuk/docker-icloudpd. 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. Don't worry though, it is all still in iCloud. Quit Photos. I am using iCloud photo library and have chosen to download originals to my MacBook Pro because I want to have local copies of all my photos. Is there a reason against using the Synology Photos app to do this..? The first part involves exporting all your photos & videos from Apple Photos. useradd: Invalid user name Find: unknown user, Im guessing its why Initialise never asks me for an iCloud password. Isn't a trailing ' &' enough to put the command to run in a job independent from the effective terminal connection? Follow the prompts to complete your request. 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. I am in a near identical situation to you guys here, 320gb library nearly full on my 512 MacBook pro. Chronosync, GoodSync, Hyperbackup. DS cloud (iOS) Version 2.11 . 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. By rejecting non-essential cookies, Reddit may still use certain cookies to ensure the proper functionality of our platform. kalleboo on March 6, 2021 | parent | context | favorite | on: Apple now lets you transfer your iCloud Photos to . 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. So since Im already paying Apple, why would I want another backup? All you have to do to back up your data to iCloud is copy it into this folder, paste it, or drag it there. - Before beginning, BACK UP ALL IMAGES to an external hard drive and disconnect it just to be safe! This process is rather lengthy so just let it run through. With 'iclouddp', once the photos are downloaded, do the files' timestamps show the original time that the pictures were taken or the time that the files were downloaded? No matter which method you prefer (though it's highly recommended to use both), your Photos library (and all images and video automatically downloaded from iCloud) will be backed up as well. Run as executable, docker container, or from the source; Run one time or continuously watch for changes to keep a local backup of your photos and videos. My approach is a combination of Moments and Apple Photos with my iMac. Transferring photos and videos from iCloud Photos doesn't remove or alter the content you store with Apple, but sends a copy of your content to the other service. I really love Apple products with the tight integration of their software with hardware. Can't wait for 1823+. Rick. Navigate to your Recently Deleted folder. Through the normal backup process ( iCloud Photo Library disabled ), your photos are backed up at most once every 24 hours along with the rest of your data, when your iPhone is on Wi-Fi, charged, and locked. 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'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. Using the cloud and backing up to an external fast drive is fairly painless. The other way is by album, but also constrained by the added . So, if you read other old posts, realize that some may complain a lot because when Apple Photos was first introduced, the referenced photos and videos did not work so well. I am writing this post because I want to give those who are considering or approaching Synology from my perspective a clear path. The unofficial Synology forum for NAS owners and enthusiasts. Copy everything from the iCloud desktop and documents folders to your Apple user home desktop and documents folders and let drive do the magic. 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. Group photos by themes or topics of your choice. Ive travelled this path, OP! Chronosync would be my second choice. So now I have the following setup; I take or import a picture on my iPhone. Once you turn on "Shared Photo Library," it creates a folder call "photo" in the Shared Folders section of DSM. This will force the container to perform a comparison of downloaded images (on file) vs images in your cloud. So I decided to make this post to give it greater visibility. Check in on the container logs every few hours or so and keep an eye on progress/error messages. I am very excited about this. Apple Music, Apple Pay/Card, iCloud, Fitness+. I didn't need to install manually, but YMMV. While that person could be the most altruistic individual, the data is still not under my control. Updated June 2022: These are still the proper steps to back up your iCloud Photo Library. Click Create > Scheduled Task > User-defined Script. If your computer went to sleep at any point, you may have to ssh to your Synology again, Run ~/.local/bin/icloudpd -d -u --recent 10 --only-print-filenames --threads-num 2, If it fails if you have spaces in your path, youll need to enclose in single quotes, See if it succeeds (it should print 10 filenames), Run ~/.local/bin/icloudpd -d -u --recent 50 --set-exif-datetime --auto-delete --threads-num 2, Check your folder using the Synology file browser to see if the photos are there and whether they open correctly, In the Synology web UI, open Synology > Control Panel > Task Scheduler, Create an upgrade script to keep the iCloud Photos Downloader up to date, Click Create > Scheduled Task > User-defined Script, General: Give it a name, run as your user, Schedule: your preference, I chose once a month, Notification: Your email here, only if abnormal termination (if you want), Highlight the resulting entry and click run, Click Action > View Result and ensure that the Current Status is Normal (0), Click Create > Scheduled Task > User-defined script again, Schedule: Your preference, I chose daily at 4am, Note that this may occasionally take a long time to run, frequencies <1 day arent recommended. The iCloud Drive documents are synchronised by iCloud to your Mac accounts Library / Mobile Documents folder. Apple has dramatically improved the functioning of the referenced photos and videos in Apple Photos and continues to do so. I think that for the moment, the only "good" solution if you want to use iCloud and have everything synchronized is to have a "desktop" Mac at home (iMac/Mini) with enough space to store all the original files and a Time Machine Backup of this Mac to the NAS. If your final integrity check comes back with a success/complete message, you can start running below compose for scheduled back-ups. You asked about moving from iCloud to NAS, but this is just a copy. We do not use the "auto import" function of Moments (or Photo Station) because we do not like the file structure it produces. (No, the Photos app specifically doesnt let you choose a network share as a destination.). Videos are transferred separately, without their albums. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding. Otherwise I would offload all my photos and stop paying Apple for 2TB of storage. Depending on how big your iCloud Photo Library is, it may take a while just be patient. Downloading was quick, but it took about a week for my NAS to index and convert all of the photos. With the exported files, I create my own file structure based on years/Months. I have the 'admin' account on my Synology disabled, but I still created the venv and installed icloudpd to the 'ds-admin' folder as laid out in the guide. I am doing the backup. Lots of software will backup your Mac to it. The format is specific year-month-day so keep to that format (shown in the ini file). Drag Photos Library to a location on your external storage device. 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. I keep my photo library on a Synology DS212+. Don't want to back up your entire library? With Cloud sync, you can seamlessly sync and share files among your Synology NAS and multiple public cloud services. She is currently part of the Digital Trends team, and has been using Apples smartphone since the original iPhone back in 2007. Sucks that it doesnt do it in the background. Pro is it also renames the photos based on date and creates a date based folder structure. What I love about this container is the fact that you can also run scheduled backups in the future. Oh no, that's disappointing! Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street, This was you have your photos backed up online in 2 places. Drive is a sync tool and you can backup with it as well. Even though your entire iCloud Photo Library is (as the name implies) stored online in iCloud, it's worth considering a second online backup as one of your redundancies. It's just a few clicks every so often depending on how worried you are, and probably not 20 minutes before it's finished. The versions with backup has always been good for me. i will check out those alternatives. I found a simple solution. The next option I tested was using a cheap miniPC running Windows 10 and Apples iCloud software to copy the files onto the mounted Synology drive. I locate my SMB (network drive) Synology "photo" folder and click ok. What Apple Photos now does is make your entire library reappear in Apple Photos. 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. The usbshare1 is not a folder, it is the operation system name for the usb disk itself. Or use tmux or screen to run the command so that you can come back to it easily. 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. Ah. Try out 'iclouddp' which you can run as a docker container on your NAS. On my study user, I have copied the photo library to my external drive and set "download full res images to this Mac". Registration is free, easy and fast! I had heard of a command line tool called icloudpd that did this, but unfortunately I lack any knowledge or skills when it comes to using such tools. If you do not have iCloud Photos turned on . If not, consider it a good time to start! Does deleting iCloud backup deletes iCloud Photo library? (You can also export sections of your library if you don't want to back up the whole thing.). You have basically now created a situation like the old "Aperture" used to function with a referenced library. Direct transfer between services, devices & NAS. If someone has an alternative for backing up a large amount of iCloud photos to a NAS Id be interested in hearing it. In fact, the Apple Photo library does not even really like external storage unless it is formatted a certain way and has adequate size to do file swap. I found a tool called icloud_photos_downloader which I packaged as a docker image. The wiki on github explains that pretty well. For even more absurd redundancy, you can use Synologys Glacier backup to copy your entire photo library up to AWS Glacier for cheap, offsite replication. #apple_ID #backup_and_sync #external_library #icloud #icloud_backup #icloud_library #icloud_photo_library #icloud_photos #icloud_services #iCloud_storage #ios #ipad #iphone #mac #mac_hard_drive #macOS #online_backup #optimize_storage #photo_backup #storage #storage_space #windows # . On your computer, mount the Synology NAS as a network disk. Any changes I make to the library are reflected when icloudpd runs. I am a Linux user as well and am just flabbergasted by how the DSM is just fantastic. Enjoy cherished memories in the palm of your hand. It's very confusing to me. Note: Synology Cloud Station Suite is not supported on DSM 7.0 and above. One of the best things is having whatever you put in your documents folder or on your desktop immediately available on all your devices in the Apple ecosystem. I run this docker container on my Synology to have it download a backup of my iCloud Photo Library 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. In fact, the Apple Photo library does not even really like external storage unless it is formatted a certain way and has adequate size to do file swap. A command-line tool to download all your iCloud photos. Having your entire photo library in iCloud is a mild risk. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts, icloudpd doesnt work if advanced data protection is turned on. It isn't perfect, but gets the job mostly done. They then turned off iCloud for desktop and documents. You can export individual images and videos to your external drive. For DSM 6.x icloud_photo_station-0.2.0.spk I was about to enable it. What about using Automator or rsync to copy the file structure thats in the local photos library bundle/package? The free 5GB individually is actually enough. Turned out it was just missing the RAM (and fix already applied). Your advice and information is most welcome and useful. Thus, they always have all their photos and videos in the Moments app but do not pay for extra iCloud space. Its important to note that this is a sync if you delete a photo from iCloud, itll also delete from your Synology. A few years ago, I decided to go all-in with iCloud Photos. You are using an out of date browser. #backup #cloud #icloud photos #library #nas #synology, App Tip: Screenie 2 OCR for screenshots, IKEA hack: Using Skdis to tidy up networking gear, How to import photos from your camera onto your iPhone, Using TP-Link HS-100 smart plugs with HomeKit, Synologys Cloud Station Backup Mac client, Synology Cloud Station Backup mac client app, The Mac Mini downloads a copy to its Photos Library, The Synology app copies the photo into its backup. If youre a digital pack rat with every photo youve ever taken, this is for you. I use the Synology photos app on my phone to sync photos when I only have a few, but if I have a lot (like after a vacation) I'll download them and then move them over to the NAS manually. Synology DS415+. Christine also enjoys coffee, food, photography, mechanical keyboards, and spending as much time with her new daughter as possible. Is there a step by step tutorial on getting this set up? Jul 31, 2017. Ok so this is by far the easiest way of doing it, but it does require you have a desktop Mac or a MacBook that, a) has a full copy of your photos library, b) Is awake and connected to your network at regular intervals to run the backup. Tips: Creating an iPad full backup is also a good choice that keeps you away from iPad data loss. Level 10. Explore photos of loved ones or favorite vacation spots through automatically created albums. It sort of worked, but quickly felt like more hassle than it was worth. When you export out of Photos, even if the mac is set to "optimised" you can export the full size file to the external, as it gets downloaded to do so. It means your photos arent stored in a recognizable, hierarchical folder format and your access to the library depends on Apple continuing to offer a reliable service. There was a problem. It's easy! If it will be your primary image library . If I delete stuff off my iCloud account, will this remove the matching entry from my local storage? 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. 2. Click each icon to preview and select the wanted files . Connect an external drive and use Photos to create its library there. Im moving away from iCloud because my photo library is exceeding the size of my current iCloud plan and the price jump from 200GB to 2TB is too much. Visit our corporate site (opens in new tab). Any stand alone NAS (DS) would be a "smarter" choice. I think I knew I could connect remotely (provided there is an internet connection, which isn't always the case for me) but wasn't sure if Apple support the iCloud System Photos Library being on an NAS. My concern is that if my photos are wiped on one device accidentally, the Mac Minis library would also be wiped). iCloud Backup is a one-way backup of your current photo library on your device. I use the Synology Drive app. Then there's an option to clean up space. Then, each family member downloaded the Synology Drive Desktop Client from here: https://www.synology.com/en-us/support/download. Additionally, the 128GB iPhone I have does not have enough storage to hold all of my photos/videos. These devices attach to a network and allow users to store, share and access files and data. Both unlikely, but it can happen. Reddit and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better experience. Now, the magic, I go into the Apple Photos preferences menu and uncheck "Importing: Copy Items to the Photos library." This container is going to be a lifesaverthank you so much for sharing and posting your compose. You can request to transfer a copy of photos and videos you store in iCloud Photos to Google Photos. If you have iCloud Photos turned on then your photos will not be included in an iCloud Backup. Only the most recent edit of the photo is transferred and not the original version.