Backup of pictures and video of Android phones

[jma2]

Hi All,

I am struggling with a solution for the following:

All family members have Android based smartphones (different brands, different Android versions) and take pictures and videos without care for regular backups (even though I warn them!).

Now I would like to install a solution by which every phone - only when connecting with our home Wifi - automatically syncs the photos and videos (one-way from phone to QNAP) to it's own account without starting any sync cycle manually. I started using ownCloud and that seemed to work at first, but then somehow the automatic syncing stopped working and it had to be triggered manually and even that didn't work very reliable.

What do you recommend for a trouble-free solution? Which combination QNAP-server-app/Android-client-app would be the sweet spot here?

Thanks in advance for your response.

J.

[MikeLagit]

Nextcloud! Get the qpkg from QNAP club.

Or just use Google photos which backs up on wifi and you can dump to disk later.

[jma2]

Thank you Mike. As far as I know Google Photos backs up a compressed version (better than nothing I know) and since I have a QNAP...

I will have a look at Nextcloud, found it in the QNAP club but will read a bit on how to use first. Looks promising!

[MikeLagit]

You essentially add the QNAP Club repo to your NAS (look in App settings) and then all the apps will show up just like QNAP apps do. Great stuff!

BTW - Google photos has a setting for full non-compressed, but you run out of space fast. If you were disciplined and took them off your google account every month it could work, but I pretty much use google photos as a last resort backup if all else fails where the compressed is better than nothing. NextCloud is my primary, and compressed google photos is my compressed backup. NextCloud dumps the photos in a space on my NAS where Crashplan picks them up right away and uploads them to the cloud. Should be fairly foolproof I think and I don't worry about losing them.

[vlotarev]

I have exactly the same problem ... Looked at suggested NextCloud - it looks rather excessive for my needs, a lot of functionality that I really don't need. Everything what I need is the lightweight application that works exactly as Google Photo but store photos on my NAS (which I can open later using QNAP web application). Don't QNAP provide such a solution in 2022?

[FSC830]

Sure QNAP provide such apps.
Qsync or Qfile can you find in the play store! I for myself prefer Qfile, it has better configuration options.
But - unfortunately as so often by QNAP - an app update can make the config unusable and you need to start over.
No pictures will be deleted, neither at NAS nor at cell-phone, but a full-sync is may be mandatory, have had this now twice using Qfile for abt. 4 years. Thank you, QNAP .

A lot of people have been switched to third party software for syncing the phone with NAS and may be its a better choice, but you asked for QNAP.

Regards

[vlotarev]

A lot of people have been switched to third party software for syncing the phone with NAS and may be its a better choice, but you asked for QNAP.

Couldn't you please advice another options rather than NextCloud?

[FSC830]

There are a lot of other third party sync tools, many users in German forum are excited by i.e. FolderSync (should be available as a free and a paid Pro version).

Regards

[dolbyman]

Sounds like OP is looking for a "cloud" solution though (exposing the service to WAN) ..so that rules out anything running directly on the NAS (security)

VM or container solutions should be chosen here

[FSC830]

Not really, OP looks for a solution in home WiFi, but thread is over 2 years old.
For latest poster its unclear, if he looks for a cloud an internal solution.

Regards

[vlotarev]

Yes, "home" solution is quite enough for me. Will take a look at FolderSync, thank you!

[dolbyman]

the "google photo" made this sound like a WAN thing

[AnalogEngineer]

I do exactly this, two way. I use a program called Sync me to sync my Android phone to my QNAP NAS. It is set to do it at night, only via wifi and only when on the charger. I also have it sync some items from the NAS to my phone. Syncs to both the phone memory and the MicroSD card. This program has a lot of options and filters so I have a couple different sync jobs running on it. The free version didn't have as many filter options but enough to let me know the program was good. I think the paid version was like $8 or something cheap.

I also use Folder Sync to sync my phone to my SD card, but I do not use it to sync to and from the NAS as it's not as compelx a program and the filter exclusions are super buggy. Folder Sync is o.k. but it is buggy and not as powerful as Sync Me.

[spile]

Since Google removed the functionality to back up photos, I use OneDrive. The QFile backup is ok but as long as you remember to run the app and of course you’ll need to be on the same lan for it to upload.