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Thread: Managing Smartphone Photos - Back Up, Cloud Services, USB Drive ?

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    Default Managing Smartphone Photos - Back Up, Cloud Services, USB Drive ?

    I remember admin wrote a brilliant thread regarding Smartphone and a Cloud service for backing up and managing his phone's photo collection.

    Essentially after each photo taken it was uploaded to a cloud storage
    1 copy kept on phone, 1 in the cloud

    While i really liked this idea, at 100 photos a day (worst case), i thought it might be a huge Mobile Data hog
    Today data allowances are larger, mine being unlimited still (for now)

    So, what is the best way to keep our photos together and in order as we go through phone after phone.... ????

    I have been pretty old school, physically remove the SD card and backing up a copy of the photos on my laptop and a portable USB drive
    In a manner something like this



    In each folder are seperate folders for DCIM, Whats App, Viber

    So its is all there, but its a pretty messy format
    Having them has proved invaluable for recounting times and dates and putting other bits of information together when the brain is fading with age.


    Is there a better method someone can suggest???

    I started with Dropbox 10 year ago with an old an iPhone, but haven't really used the service since.

    I guess having on a USB drive keeps them off the net
    But if that one drive fails, all the photos are gone
    And having them online, might be handy for access from any device

    I'm a bit lost if anyone would care to chime in

    Cheers
    If u want to go on an expedition get a Land Rover, if u want to come home from an expedition get a Landcruiser!



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    i do mine with my qnap nas .

    all get transfered wirelessly and stored on ssd drives.
    I can access these files when i am away if i wanted to through
    their app etc

    Last edited by fandtm666; 05-02-20 at 02:58 PM.

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    I just copy them to my HDD at the end of the day.
    I'm out of my mind, but feel free to leave a message...

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    For what its worth, i found admins thread from 2015 on this subject

    May be helpful for anyone coming across this thread.... Interesting to see if its still relevant today
    Be nice to hear admin chime in for an update

    If he still uses the same service, if its been a good thing




    A cloud service might be the go now, especially when you have 3 mobile devices all signed into the same account
    Photos soon get lost of forgotten when they are on your Tablet and you just spent 3 days looking for the backup under your Phone backups .....

    Most have a Mobile Phone or 2, a Tablet and a Portable Drive full of back ups

    It is easy for things to get out of hand
    Last edited by ol' boy; 06-02-20 at 08:11 AM.
    If u want to go on an expedition get a Land Rover, if u want to come home from an expedition get a Landcruiser!

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    Have to say I am AMAZED at the amount of people that don't back up their Pics on phones or Digital camera's. I'm doubloy amazed that people think a phone is a substitute for a camera.

    Been told for years how wonderful phone cameras are now. I have always said the phones Might be OK but the people using them are shit. By this I mean I have seen so many times, when people take a pic with a phone they ( generally) put no effort into it. They will not consider lighting, background or even holding the thing steady. Give them a camera, even a little Point and shoot, and suddenly the mindset changes. Now we have a camera, this must be important( Because it's not just a phone) lets get this right....

    And the results are totally and utterly Different.

    Recently I was going a glamour shoot with a girl whom had the latest 3 lens I phoney. She asked If I could do some pics on the phone so she could send them to the the club she worked for straight away. I said sure, actualy I want to compare what that thing will do and what my camera gets.
    Suffice to say, as much as I know it will up set the many " Phones are good as a camera " Brigade, the Phone pics were relative shit, ESPECIALLY the indoor shots. The client agreed.

    I turned all my lights off and shot available light inside to make the comparison totally fair and the Phone really fell over where the hand help camera in available light worked really well.
    Outside with some light to work with the Phone improved but was still not near the camera quality and the client admitted the same, although expressing surprise at the same time.

    You -may- be able to juice the phone pics up and make them look closer to camera pics but at the end of the day there just insn't the same quality to start with. I have seen and heard of people shooting weddings on Phones ( obviously to prove you can just like I could shoot one on an old instamatic film camera to prove a point) But sorry to upset the phone crowd, it's a phone, NOT a camera.

    I Bought my Daughter a top of the line Canon P&S and it is a fantastic little camera. The quality on that is brilliant. You could fit 3 of them in a shirt pocket and it does all sorts of things like GPS, Uploading and a heap more. Great res, fantastic colour balance and rendition, fast and I bought her some 200 Gb cards to load in the thing so she can go OS and never run out of space no matter how many pics she takes. Thankfully she too can see the difference and phone pics are for basic records, not lifetime memories.
    This thing wasn't cheap, retails for about $800 which was the same price as the SLR and decent lens she had before I bought her but this is a LOT more compact and doesen't really miss out on any features and has a good range zoom lens that is fast, has great colour and very worthwhile Optical zoom range.


    As far as backing up, I'm pedantic because I don't want to loose pics as I have before.
    Given I use actual camera's for taking pics not phones ( there is a novel thought!!) Pretty much now with cards being so dam cheap, I'm buying smaller ones like 16Gb which are cheap as chips and putting each job or holiday etc on those. I drop them on the computer and then just lable and retire the card. I have images on cards from 2000 when I first went into Digital and they work fine. If they have lasted on the often hit and miss cards from back then, I think they will still be around long after I'm not on modern cards.
    Cards are so small one could back up a million+ Pics in a cigarette packet.

    Far as I have found, Cards are the most stable and reliable medium of all. I have a number of cards I have backed up the most important things in my life on and for the next to nothing cost, I just pull them out and put them away.

    Previously I have backed pics onto multiple HDDs. Don't know how many people have come to me over the years after the only Hdd on their computers have crashed or been corrupted by a virus and the first 5 years of their Kids lives are now gone and there is nothing else bar the very occasional pic they actually printed out.
    Hdds in the everyday computer you use is risky as Fk! I have multiple drives and even these days, they can fall over or corrupt without warning. Yeah, some people have drives 10 Yo as I do which are fine and I couldn't say how many I have had that have fallen over in 12 Months and I'm talking about ones I bought 2 years not 10 ago. Backing up is NOT putting on your computers Hdd. You need a separate medium not in the computer as a MINIMUM.

    One thing I do with all my family pics was is back them onto Multiple separate HDDs. Every month or so, I'd pull the backup drive out the safe, Plug it into the computer, drop the recent files on it ( which were all put in monthly named folders on the main PC ) and then remove it and put that HDD back in the safe.

    About every year or so, I'll get the Hdd my friend has and he'd get his and we'd update that drive as well and give them back. Thought being if ever our house Burned down, ( which WAS a real risk with Bushfires last November) the other one of us had a copy. I have gone one further with family pics and now also put a computer at my fathers place with a Big HDD and update that when I go up there.
    Over the top? Yes, of course, that's the whole Idea. I'll never get another chance to take pics of my son so nothing is too much for me to do to make sure I have the pics I do of him.

    These days Portable HDDS make things much easier. I'd suggest getting one of those, and backing pics to them on a regular basis. Maybe every 3 months or whenever important pics such as holidays, weddings etc are taken. Put them on your computer you use all the time and then back them up on the portable HDD. I'd even back them up twice but I know most people don't hold photos in the same regard I do and/ or don't think that is necessary. Never is till you loose something and it's too late to get it back.

    If you want to back up something to the fog, by all means. I think having an off site backup is important as well. I personally don't trust these things a lot but something is far better than nothing. Multiple layers of redundancy is still something that all industries rely on for things of vital importance.

    These days many devices automatically Sync when you plug them in so you can easily tell them where to put the pics and then back from there onto seperate HDD. I also use " Hot folder" Programs. They monitor a folder and whenever anything new comes in, they do whatever with it, like send the files to another location.
    These things take a little investment in setup but once they are done, the effort is non existent.

    I look at things, many things this way....
    Would I be happy to pay the cost of avoiding the problem in the first place if one occurred?
    In this case, it would be " If I lost all my pictures, would I be happy to pay the $80 for a back up hard drive that meant I had them all back?
    You bet your arse I would! That being the case, I pay the money up front and avoid the problem in the first place and enjoy the piece of mind that if something does happen, I won't be kicking myself for the rest of my life.
    Goes for other things too. If the tree fell on my house, would I like to rewind time and be happy to pay what the tree bloke wanted to cut it and not have it damage the place? If yes then I would get it done and avoid the problem and the greater consequence costs. This approach has served me well on many things over the years.

    I have enough regrets already. I will pay a lot of money and a lot of attention to avoid having any more. If a bit of time and a few bucks means I'll never have to regret loosing all my important pics, I'm not going to tight arse and neglect that!

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    I think plenty of us own and use DSLR's as well as Smart phones.

    But the simple fact is, your smartphone is generally with you 99% of the time, so it becomes your most likely source of photographic documentation.
    The work industry i'm in now 100% relies on smartphone photos for daily work documentation, mostly photos of work procedures, bar codes, VUI's, faults, progess, and final completion... All in "Live Time" as it happens.
    All sent in Private Chat Groups multiple times a day

    Same when you go on the special holiday, you pack your DSLR or maybe you don't, so your Smartphone becomes your main source of photos

    I have been happy with my "Old School" photo back method so far...
    I generally do it, just prior to leaving for a holiday or any situation where i might lose or damage my phone (pics on SD card in phone anyway)
    Then again when i return from Holiday, i back up a copy of the recent Holidays photos

    The photos in between are generally day to day rubbish, but nonetheless, some important items might be in there.

    I have found, it's the "Timeline" of my life events more so the photo itself i have found helpful.
    Going back and working out what i did on a certain day when i'm trying to recall a situation or event.

    With Family Event photos, seems these days, there are multiple family members all taking photos of the exact same thing, so someone is going to have a copy if you lose yours.
    Same with Holidays to a degree.....


    The other thing people forget is, it is not just the Photos you take anymore
    It is the important photos that are sent via any of the messaging apps!!! Viber, Whats App, etc.... Sometimes these are more important than the pics you take
    Most allow for Cloud Back-Up (Both Messages and Photos, Videos) but still.... Its another portal you may easy forget about when it comes to that photo youre looking for

    It gets messy real fast
    Last edited by ol' boy; 06-02-20 at 09:28 AM.
    If u want to go on an expedition get a Land Rover, if u want to come home from an expedition get a Landcruiser!

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    Can someone enlighten me on this issue?

    You have a Smartphone and a Cloud Storage account
    They are both synced, so when you take a photo, its sent to your Cloud Account.

    Happy Days.......

    Then after you have 4325 photo on your smartphone, you decide i'll delete those to make some space (internal or SD Card memory)
    Then it wants to Delete the Photos on the Cloud service as you have selected "Sync"

    Obviously there must be a option you tick, something like "Keep on Cloud" when you delete pics from your phone?
    Seems not after reading recent comments on the this YouTube video







    Current reviews of the Google Photo App claim the same problem as recent as yesterday



    There must be an option they are missing, the system can't be this backwards???
    Yet at times, you would want this to be the case, say you took 4 dud pics, so you delete them from your phone and are happy they are deleted from the Cloud Service as well.

    Hmmmmmmm
    Last edited by ol' boy; 06-02-20 at 09:43 AM.
    If u want to go on an expedition get a Land Rover, if u want to come home from an expedition get a Landcruiser!

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    And for the Tinfoil Hat wearers, there's this recently.........



    If u want to go on an expedition get a Land Rover, if u want to come home from an expedition get a Landcruiser!

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    Holy Smoke, seems i've been using Google Photos and didn't even realise!!!!



    What i have in my Google Photos looks to be photos i've attached to emails using the "Add Photo" option.... from years ago!!!!!
    If u want to go on an expedition get a Land Rover, if u want to come home from an expedition get a Landcruiser!

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    And you wonder why I am not particularly trusting of "cloud" storage.
    I'm out of my mind, but feel free to leave a message...

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    olboy your last couple of post's in this thread is the reason i prefer my qnap cloud


    It works exactly the same as all the other cloud soloutions
    BUT you control it .

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    Quote Originally Posted by fandtm666 View Post
    olboy your last couple of post's in this thread is the reason i prefer my qnap cloud


    It works exactly the same as all the other cloud soloutions
    BUT you control it .
    Have to agree mate

    So how does the process work for you?

    Do your photos upload to your NAS after you take each photo?
    Or do you just pic a time when you dump a heap of photos from your Phone to your NAS?

    When you delete Photos from your Phone.... Are they deleted from the NAS?
    Or do you run it essentially like a Portable USB HDD?
    If u want to go on an expedition get a Land Rover, if u want to come home from an expedition get a Landcruiser!

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    I think i might try Google Photos

    The main reason for this thread is just House Keeping....
    I'll still do my manual old school USB drive back ups

    But with 2 Phones and a Tablet and then upgrading to new phones, its just a major pain in the ass keeping track of things
    I see this more about streamlining and housekeeping, especially when you include Viber Photos and Whats App Photos on top of Camera Photos.

    IE: Both Viber and Whats App offer Google Drive Back-Up now anyway......
    So your Conversations and Files should follow you to new devices when you upgrade etc

    As for your Data / Photos falling into the wrong hands or being spied on.....
    I look at that without much concern, there would have to be a few billion users out there, really, what are my odds of exposure?
    And the photos really aren't that interesting.... The geo tagging and time/location trail is probably more of a concern.


    Here is a recent post regarding Backing Up Photos:

    Seems not much different to what we have been discussing
    Last edited by ol' boy; 06-02-20 at 01:33 PM.
    If u want to go on an expedition get a Land Rover, if u want to come home from an expedition get a Landcruiser!

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