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    I built an app to backup Live Photos from iPhone to external hard drives

    75 points xmasterdev | 41 comments | 23 Jun 25 04:36 UTC | HN request time: 1.636s | source | bottom

    I noticed so many iPhone users are dealing with the same storage nightmare. Here's a common scenario that sounds familiar to a lot of people:

    The widespread problem: iPhone storage fills up crazy fast, not everyone has a Mac, many don't want to pay monthly for iCloud storage, and home NAS setups aren't realistic for most users. The manual approach of creating folders and selecting photos one by one is tedious, and keeping up with new photos becomes overwhelming

    So I built an app called BackiGo that addresses this exact pain point - it allows direct backup of Live Photos from iPhone to external hard drives, no Mac needed.

    What makes it useful:

    Backs up your Live Photos with all the motion intact

    Can restore Live Photos back to your iPhone camera roll

    Super easy to backup new photos

    You can browse and view all your saved Live Photos directly from the external drive without having to restore them first

    You can test it out with up to 500 photos & videos backup before deciding if it works for your needs

    1. gerdemb ◴[24 Jun 25 21:44 UTC] No.44371404[source]▶
    Where is the link? How can iPhone backup directly to an external hard drive?
    replies(2): >>44380074 #>>44381440 #
    2. Amorymeltzer ◴[25 Jun 25 17:56 UTC] No.44380074[source]▶
    I believe it's this: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/backigo-live-photos-backup/id6...
    3. 1970-01-01 ◴[25 Jun 25 17:57 UTC] No.44380088[source]▶
    How is this different from iMazing?

    https://imazing.com/backup-iphone-ipad#:~:text=Choose%20iPho...

    replies(2): >>44380523 #>>44380899 #
    4. msh ◴[25 Jun 25 18:37 UTC] No.44380523[source]▶
    It’s more like PhotoSync as it only does photos
    5. keroro ◴[25 Jun 25 18:39 UTC] No.44380551[source]▶
    How much does it cost?
    replies(1): >>44380888 #
    6. er0k ◴[25 Jun 25 18:45 UTC] No.44380614[source]▶
    I just use rsync, works great
    replies(1): >>44380671 #
    7. rsync ◴[25 Jun 25 18:51 UTC] No.44380671[source]▶
    Would you explain how you are using rsync to backup photos on an iPhone ?

    I'm not aware of an iOS app named "rsync" and ... presumably you don't have a shell ... ?

    replies(3): >>44380951 #>>44383976 #>>44388897 #
    8. recury ◴[25 Jun 25 19:12 UTC] No.44380888[source]▶
    In-App Purchases

    BackiGo Pro Yearly (1 Year) $6.99

    BackiGo Pro Monthly (1 Month) $0.99

    BackiGo Pro Lifetime $14.99

    9. tempodox ◴[25 Jun 25 19:14 UTC] No.44380899[source]▶
    I loved the idea until I saw that it's only available as a subscription.
    replies(1): >>44381108 #
    10. slicktux ◴[25 Jun 25 19:20 UTC] No.44380951{3}[source]▶
    You can load the IPhone’s pictures on Linux using the folders namespace and then rsync from the loaded namespace to /local…
    replies(2): >>44381070 #>>44381509 #
    11. gaudat ◴[25 Jun 25 19:28 UTC] No.44381020[source]▶
    >home NAS setups aren't realistic for most users

    Citation needed. Get a Synology NAS and use their Photos app which backups Live photos on both iDevices and Androids. Buy it for life.

    replies(6): >>44381568 #>>44381873 #>>44382034 #>>44382748 #>>44384183 #>>44390006 #
    12. wood_spirit ◴[25 Jun 25 19:34 UTC] No.44381070{4}[source]▶
    I use a usb cable and a Linux laptop to copy to a couple of external hard drives (which I store separately). It’s all manual but not too orrenous although i ought backup more often. The biggest hassle is accessing the new heic format on pretty much everything.

    Could it all be made into a sd card image for a pi zero perhaps? Even with a web ui accessible over Wi-Fi? A basic cheap sync-cable-appliance that non-techies can easily use?

    replies(1): >>44381731 #
    13. ◴[25 Jun 25 19:38 UTC] No.44381108{3}[source]▶
    14. SwamyM ◴[25 Jun 25 19:38 UTC] No.44381114[source]▶
    I would love this if it allowed me to backup all photos taken with the iPhone to an external drive. Currently, Apple dumps all pictures (from the Camera, from iMessage, WhatsApp, etc.) into folder makes it difficult to backup just my pictures.
    15. jlarocco ◴[25 Jun 25 19:44 UTC] No.44381180[source]▶
    I wouldn't use it personally, but I could see it being useful for my parents or family.

    ifuse and rsync works fine for me.

    16. mindwork ◴[25 Jun 25 20:04 UTC] No.44381328[source]▶
    Would immich work for this? You can run it locally in docker container
    17. criddell ◴[25 Jun 25 20:17 UTC] No.44381440[source]▶
    Plug it in to the USB port on the phone. iPhone Pro can transfer at up to 20 Gbps but the non-pro models are much slower.

    The iPhone camera can also shoot directly to an attached SSD.

    replies(2): >>44381525 #>>44382008 #
    18. trinix912 ◴[25 Jun 25 20:25 UTC] No.44381509{4}[source]▶
    But does it work for Live Photos which is the main premise of this app?
    19. ◴[25 Jun 25 20:26 UTC] No.44381515[source]▶
    20. supportengineer ◴[25 Jun 25 20:28 UTC] No.44381525{3}[source]▶
    I have bad news for you, that's not a real iPhone
    replies(1): >>44381745 #
    21. pdxandi ◴[25 Jun 25 20:33 UTC] No.44381568[source]▶
    I've been doing this for many years and am pretty happy with it. I can sync from my Android and my wife's iPhone. The Photos app is nice and smooth. Backups happen automatically in the background. It can even de-dupe and clean up old photos that have been backed up. All in all, quite pleased with it.
    22. polymatter ◴[25 Jun 25 20:42 UTC] No.44381626[source]▶
    Thank you for including a non subscription “lifetime” payment option.
    23. rsync ◴[25 Jun 25 20:54 UTC] No.44381731{5}[source]▶
    I think I heard that the latest 'rclone' now, finally, support iCloud ... but I think there is an issue there because you can't sync full quality / RAW photos to icloud, can you ?
    replies(1): >>44383449 #
    24. enzanki_ars ◴[25 Jun 25 20:56 UTC] No.44381745{4}[source]▶
    This is a real feature of iPhones since the iPhone 15 Pro model. https://support.apple.com/en-in/109041
    25. HuwFulcher ◴[25 Jun 25 21:11 UTC] No.44381873[source]▶
    You’re looking at £300ish for an entry level Synology and the storage. That isn’t a realistic expense for many users.
    replies(1): >>44389139 #
    26. mfa1999 ◴[25 Jun 25 21:23 UTC] No.44381957[source]▶
    Will it work with large (huge) photos libraries? Eg. 150k photos/videos - most of them in iCloud. Does it preserve album/folder structure?
    27. discostrings ◴[25 Jun 25 21:31 UTC] No.44382008{3}[source]▶
    > iPhone Pro can transfer at up to 20 Gbps

    Citation/proof strongly needed on 20 Gbps

    replies(1): >>44382595 #
    28. thenaturalist ◴[25 Jun 25 21:36 UTC] No.44382034[source]▶
    Let's be real, that's already far less approachable to 90% of consumers I know.

    The simples hurdle just being knowledge.

    The existence of NAS is probably an unknown unkown to a large part of the population.

    Compare that to "there's an app for that" & plug USB.

    Drastically simpler.

    No skin in the game either way, but I can very much understand OPs reasoning and would reach the same conclusion.

    29. criddell ◴[25 Jun 25 23:01 UTC] No.44382595{4}[source]▶
    Right you are. I was going off my (bad) memory. It’s a 10 Gbps port.
    30. kzisme ◴[25 Jun 25 23:26 UTC] No.44382748[source]▶
    Or checkout https://immich.app/ !
    31. RockRobotRock ◴[26 Jun 25 01:31 UTC] No.44383449{6}[source]▶
    rclone has support for iCloud Drive, but it sounds like you are talking about iCloud Photos, which is a different service.

    This project lets you download from the latter: https://github.com/icloud-photos-downloader/icloud_photos_do...

    32. sandreas ◴[26 Jun 25 03:37 UTC] No.44383976{3}[source]▶
    Don't know if still works, but this is how I did it back in the days I had an iPhone:

    https://pilabor.com/blog/2022/01/access-and-recover-files-fr...

    Nowadays I'd use immich or ente.io, which has and e2e encryption cloud as well as self-hosted setup

    33. michaelraiwet ◴[26 Jun 25 04:28 UTC] No.44384183[source]▶
    A Synology NAS doesn’t last for life.
    replies(1): >>44387277 #
    34. atmosx ◴[26 Jun 25 05:12 UTC] No.44384355[source]▶
    I am using PhotoSync to backup photos from iPhone to a self-hosted Photoprism via WebDAV (accessible from everywhere via tailscale).
    35. uuddlrlrbaba ◴[26 Jun 25 13:35 UTC] No.44387277{3}[source]▶
    And isn't protection against fire, flood, theft or other disasters.
    36. mattfrommars ◴[26 Jun 25 15:59 UTC] No.44388654[source]▶
    Is this a native IOS app?
    37. mattfrommars ◴[26 Jun 25 15:59 UTC] No.44388663[source]▶
    Btw, there is also LocalSend. Pretty nifty app
    38. er0k ◴[26 Jun 25 16:26 UTC] No.44388897{3}[source]▶
    here is the script I use https://gist.github.com/er0k/86843b62fedc2f533068f04c689be97...
    39. Jnr ◴[26 Jun 25 16:55 UTC] No.44389139{3}[source]▶
    Over time it saves money. I got a home server and a tiny remote backup server 8 years ago and it runs quite a few services saving me hundreds each month and costing in electricity and hardware (over time) about 15EUR/mo. The longer it runs, the cheaper it is. Most of the updates are automatic so no babysitting required.
    40. MehdiHK ◴[26 Jun 25 18:31 UTC] No.44390006[source]▶
    Synology is still my go to with the model I already purchased. But I'm not sure I'll be buying them again after this:

    https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/nas/synology-requ...