Google confirms its latest update can scan all your photos to “use actual images of you and your loved ones” in AI image generation. That means Gemini seeing who you know and what you do. You likely have tens or hundreds of thousands of photos. They’re all exposed if you update.
If you’re able to manage a Docker container, you could consider Immich. It works great, has client apps for iOS and Android. Open Source. I’ve been using it for a few years now.
https://github.com/immich-app/immich
The main reason why I haven’t moved to Immich is backups. Storage is Hella expensive and there’s no way I store photos without a backup.
Backblaze B2 is about $7 a month per TB.
Almost every major backup solution natively supports S3 compatible storage.
Same, I set it up a few years ago and both me and my partner have been using it since then with no issues at all, it’s completely replaced Google Photos for us.
We’ve also set up immich-frame and repurposed an old Google Nest hub to use as a digital photo frame.
I’ve written a python script that fetches a random image from an immich album using its API, every 30 seconds and sets it as my media pc (Ubuntu) wallpaper. Serves as a frame when no windows are open. Recently updated the code to fetch images only when the desktop has mouse focus, to save unnecessary HDD reads when I’m watching something.
Immich-frame has been on my todo list for a while. Need to get on that.
Not that difficult to setup either. If I can do it anyone with a keyboard can.