Do you backup changed photos in iOS?
How do you backup a slow motion video on iOS? Synology exports, meaning your 240fps video becomes a 30fps video.
Immich retains the 240fps.
Just tested out a slow-motion video on iOS, we unfortunately don't retain the transformation.
On the brighter side of things, it's just a transformation. We are retaining the original file as is. So will look into how Immich is handling this format. Thanks for bringing this up!
How it's played is not a concern of the backup tool. It is a concern of the player.
Synology exports. So I record something at 240fps, and then the file uploaded is 30fps. That's not a backup.
It's like when you backup a photoshop PSD. You want a backup of the PSD, not a flattened PNG.
```
Stream #0:0[0x1](und): Video: hevc (Main) (hvc1 / 0x31637668), yuv420p(tv, bt709), 1920x1080, 78644 kb/s, 239.70 fps, 240 tbr, 2400 tbn (default)
```
I think it would be cool for the player to recognize a 240fps video and allow it to play slow mo. But again, that's a client responsibly.
This stuck ut immediately to me trying the app out, which made me read about it on your blog[0]. Oddly, when accessing Ente on the web (Safari on a Mac), the thumbnails look right but the full view is sRGB.
I understand Flutter has made some progress in this department [1], but I guess there's more going on here?
The fundamentals of the project look absolutely great! Hope to become a user very soon.
[0]https://ente.io/blog/tech/display-p3/ [1]https://github.com/flutter/flutter/issues/55092#issuecomment...
Maybe we can give temporary access to processing steps in the pipeline, then have Immich forget the keys after it does the processing?
I've scribbled a bit about the story behind the name and the mascot here: https://ente.io/blog/ducky/
> Our open source code has been audited by reputed cryptographers.
I think you probably mean "reputable", as "reputed" inspires a lot less confidence.
Dictionary Definitions from Oxford Languages · reputed /rɪˈpjuːtɪd/ adjective past participle: reputed
2. widely known and well thought of. "a highly reputed company"
Similar:well thought of, well respected, respected, highly regarded
But like OP pointed out, "reputed" could also mean
> generally believed to exist or be something specified, but not definitely the case. "a reputed budget of $165 million"
For now I've replaced it with the less ambiguous word ("reputable") to remove any confusion and will pick a better way to phrase this the next time we iterate on the landing page.
But it splits your metadata (like capture time, geo coordinates) and places them in a separate sidecar file.
This isn't an issue if you're migrating to Ente because during import the desktop app[1] will merge the metadata with their respective files.
If it's for you to keep a local copy, you will unfortunately need to write some scripts. There's in fact a paid product[2] that does just this.
The latter is very likely in the long run.
There's this tool that can fix capture times: https://github.com/mattwilson1024/google-photos-exif
There are perhaps more that I'm unaware of.
However, your reply gives me pause. The website says the apps are open-source, the other comment says the server is now open-source. Does that mean there's some pluggable black-box magic that the subscription enables?
To ask another way, if I self-host the server, can't I build the desktop app, import from Google Photos and then somehow export from the self-hosted server? Maybe not as ideal as a purpose-built script? Or is this not even possible?
So there is no black-box magic that the subscription enables. Our live, breathing production setup is available in a monorepo here[1].
> is this not even possible
This is very much possible.
I've added an updated comment here[2], thanks!
Not very straight forward, but it should work :)
But with takeout the problem is that all dates and metadata gets messed up. I had to learn this the hard way. There is some tools that somehow correct the dates. But it's not perfect and I wouldn't really want my photos to be locked up like that. What if google decides to discontinue Google Takeout? Or just give you lower quality pictures after some point? You really are not safe.
Since that experience I moved to onedrive temporarily because it's a bit safer solution for now until all of these new services get stable (immich, ente, etc). Onedrive let's you access you photos like normal Onedrive files so that's really good. I know microsoft will have my data now and sync is also not perfect. So it's definitely not perfect. But I had to move to something else before the better solutions emerge.
Google Photos already has a public API. But you cannot consume it if you are building a competing service[1]. Also, the APIs will not serve you files in their original quality.
If they wanted to honor the intent behind GDPR's portability mandate, it would have been trivial for them to enable seamless migrations.
Now what's ironic is how Google is a "partner" in the Data Transfer Initiative[2].
[1]: https://developers.google.com/photos/library/guides/acceptab...
[2]: https://dtinit.org
OneDrive ceased to be a good backup alternative when they stripped GPS from all my photos 1-2 years ago. Unlike Google, there's no way to recover original files. They simply destroyed them.
This is scary. Isn't OneDrive supposed to keep files bit-identical? Or were you using their iOS/Android apps to back up photos, and some bug caused the photos to be backed up without their metadata?
Their mobile app is now stripping GPS on upload while files uploaded from desktop are unaffected.
However the files I already had uploaded going back to 2017 were stripped. No idea if this was done server side or by the mobile client but the end effect is the same.
Unlike Google, Microsoft doesn't bother documenting this policy.
Always good to see some one from this side making to the front page of HN!!
Please note that if you're primarily using SmugMug to store RAW files, their support (in terms of previewing capabilities) is limited right now. It's on our roadmap, and we will prioritize it, but just wanted to give you a heads up.
Flickr does it, why wouldn't SmugMug?
But, sending multiple emails to customers with a threat to delete their private photos unless they pay, is a kafkaesque way to do business. Sorry, I'm not going to pay for something when I'm treated with actual hostility...
April 19th 2022: [IMPORTANT] Free account limit enforcement changes.
May 12th 2022: FINAL NOTICE: You are in violation of our free account limits.
Oct 6th 2022: Reminder: Your account is in violation of our free account limits.
I think "actual hostility" would have been simply shutting Flickr off, something Yahoo was ready to do. (Post acquisition, they later publicly admitted they regretted not doing just that[1]). I'm surprised you view getting notices that you have the opportunity to download your content (or pay for it, your choice) to be hostile. Is it less hostile to simply delete the data with no warning, like hundreds of other services have done?
We've tried hard to thread the needle between fixing Flickr's business model (it was losing tens of millions of dollars a year when we bought them, primarily because giving away 1TB/account for free is not sustainable) and giving people plenty of time to download their photos prior to deletion.
Tough problem, tough situation, but I'm largely proud of how we've handled it - there's been plenty of runway and notice for people to get their photos back if they prefer not to pay (either scenario - paying or downloading - is fine in our minds, but losing photos is not). We're not holding them hostage or anything, we want everyone to have them, one way or the other.
Email open & click rates being what they are (low), we carefully tracked them, plus download and/or subscription rates, to determine how frequently to contact people so we could have a high confidence that most people knew they had a choice and had the chance to make it.
Your photos over the free limits will be deleted, eventually. I don't know when, for your specific account, but it's certainly not just to "silence empty threats". It's not a threat, it's a statement, and it was intended as a courtesy.
I'm glad you have a choice AND you _know_ you have a choice.
[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/verizon-to-lay-off-7-of-media-g...
I think we have different perspectives on things. Flickr wasn't a way to archive content, it was a way to share it before social media showed up. The need for Flickr died over the years.
I don't really care if Flickr deletes the photos or not, they were all backed up when I originally uploaded them because I've been conditioned to services just deleting content on a whim. Those of us in crypto say, not your keys, not your coins. Similar mentality. I'm accustomed to hostility.
Sending a FINAL NOTICE and then a more friendly reminder, and then not doing anything, is hostile behavior intended to extort people to pay money for a service that really hasn't seen any improvement in a very long time.
My $0.02... listen to them and shut it down and stop burning money on it. But you won't do that cause 'the choice' must be profitable enough to keep it going.
I'd argue that we have the same perspective on things - Flickr is a way to share, not archive. (Archival may be a wonderful side benefit, but community and connection are what makes Flickr magical, archive is a bonus) Yahoo had a different perspective. We're attempting to reverse it.
And we're succeeding. Across every metric you can imagine, Flickr is the healthiest it's ever been. More active users, more engagement, more connections, more revenue, more of everything - except people treating it like a "photo dump".
Most importantly, our members are ecstatic about it, it's now profitable and cash flow positive, so not in imminent danger (and we're trying to build it, sustainably, for 100+ years[1]). IMHO, it's not nearly enough, yet, but the trajectory is awesome. It's working. And it's working without invading people's privacy, unlike nearly every other social media platform.
We haven't "not done anything". Your account, for reasons I don't know, though someone here at Flickr likely does, hasn't seen anything. There's a big difference. Other accounts have. Every account will, eventually, including yours. Sorry you got an extra runway. ;) We're trying to be VERY careful about deleting photos.
I'm glad you had (and have?) backups. We know definitely, though, that MOST of our members did not. You were an outlier, but our outreach to people without backups was very appreciated. They had a very clear choice, we didn't hold their photos hostage, and that mattered to them.
It was definitely not intended to extort anyone - the options were very clear: download your photos and/or pay for the storage. (I think "and" is the right choice, but I'm biased... I also don't keep my photo archive _only_ on SmugMug and/or Flickr). The vast majority downloaded, rather than paid, and we view that as a win.
We gave people years to learn, choose, and act. I'd say that's pretty generous, and more generous than nearly any other troubled Internet service I've ever heard of. Are you aware of one that's been more generous? If you DIDN'T have backups, would you still have found our emails hostile?
I would appreciate answers to my prior questions, which you didn't address. Were we more hostile than simply turning everything off? It was a binary option. We chose to give people years of choice instead of deleting their photography.
When I see the home screen, I am presented with 3 friends with pro accounts, who have been using your service for years. Some as long as I have. F1: last upload 2011, F2: last upload Oct 2023, F3: 2021. What this says to me is that people are paying for storage and are not actively using the site. The non-paying friends are 1-5 years ago. Those aren't customers, those are people who fell into the trap of paying for something because it was a lower bar than migrating somewhere else.
Of course what I see is different than what you see, that's why I think our perspectives are so different.
I'm sad that you keep dodging what I view as the more important questions after you accused us of "actual hostility", though. I'd really love to understand how we missed the mark for you, and how we've been hostile, in case that applies to non-outliers and it's something we can improve on.
Was offering years of downloads on a _free_ service hostile? In what way? Was delaying deletion to give more people more time to download hostile? Why? Do you really believe hundreds of millions of consumers all had backups? What other similar Internet services are better examples of handling a situation like this?
Or are you just trolling and I've been feeding a troll (if so, congrats, I feel like my troll detection is relatively high)?
> I'd really love to understand how we missed the mark for you, and how we've been hostile, in case that applies to non-outliers and it's something we can improve on.
I thought I answered that above:
"Sending a FINAL NOTICE and then a more friendly reminder, and then not doing anything, is hostile behavior intended to extort people to pay money for a service that really hasn't seen any improvement in a very long time."
---
This conversation got me thinking about the history of things given that I've been a member of that site for 19 years. So, I went searching. This is a pretty good article I ran across from 2019:
https://ferdychristant.com/the-rise-fall-and-resurrection-of...
I find that little has changed since that article was written.
Let's start with the facts:
1. You have a free account and pay $0 for the service.
2. You received a few emails informing you of our choices when we changed the free account policies and limits.
3. Your choices included downloading your content, paying for the service, and/or closing your account.
4. You (and everyone) then got more time to make your choice than we'd originally said, for free.
5. Your account, for some reason, hasn't seen some of these changes, so you got even more time to make some of those choices, again for free.
None of that sounds hostile to me. I'm not sure who would consider that behavior hostile (more choices, more time, at $0 cost). Despite the depth of the conversation, I'm still struggling to understand (but, surprisingly, still open to the idea of) how we can be accused of "actual hostility".
Now, let's take your false statements:
- "not doing anything": I can assure you we've done many things, to many accounts. Using an online search engine will reveal plenty of examples. Why has your account not seen some of them? I don't know, but speculating that we haven't done "anything" is simply not true. Even your account has seen many changes, perhaps just not the one you highlight (removing your excess private photos). Try uploading more than 1000 public photos, as just one example of doing something.
- "intended to extort people": Simply not true. The choices were clear and the timeline was, and in your case, remains extremely generous. I happen to know the intent (not deleting any photos for as long as we possibly can) and you do not. Further, every action we've taken supports this intent. We didn't, and don't, hold any photos hostage for payment or anything else. There was no extortion, and there was certainly no intent to extort.
- "hasn't seen any improvement for a very long time": While it's possible you haven't seen any of YOUR preferred improvements, the list of improvements since we took over is long and consistent. We're averaging ~10 material improvements in the form of new features, upgraded features, and significant bug fixes, each month, for the last ~5 years. (Thousands of minor bug fixes, too) They're all well-documented on our blog[1] and in our help forum[2]. Our members agree, based on all of the feedback and data we see.
I typically love conversations like these, with "delightfully discontent" customers, because that's where the real value for learning and growth usually lies, not the thrilled customers I tend to meet day in & day out. I want to learn something here, so I and we can improve. It hasn't happened yet.
We clearly fucked up - you're upset, and you're bothering to engage. I just can't figure it out. Probably my fault. But I'll keep trying. :)
[1] - https://blog.flickr.net/
I see this as a masterclass on how to fail to convert a 19 year member of a website, back to a paying customer.
Yes, I used to pay for Flickr Pro. I stopped when I found that it wasn't providing me value other than "we will delete your private photos" if you don't pay up.
By the way, I did at one point look in the UX to see if there was a way to be able to view just my private photos so that I could delete them myself, but it wasn't obvious in my searching. It felt like it was intentionally difficult to even see if I wanted to keep an account.
Never once did he ask the simple question: "What can we do to convert you into a paying customer again?". Everything has been some sort of weird truth seeking mission to prove me wrong.
The fact that he even engaged with you at all, and to the degree he did, was incredibly kind and he showed much restraint, kudos to him for that.
But you continued to double-down on your opinions and think you're more important and worthy of his time than everyone else. Why is that?
Never once asked for that. Although, let me remind you that he does in fact make money off driving traffic to my public images (and everyone else's as well). If he wants to give away that service for free, it is his business choice to do that.
> The fact that he even engaged with you at all, and to the degree he did, was incredibly kind and he showed much restraint, kudos to him for that.
Agreed. Kudos to him!
> But you continued to double-down on your opinions and think you're more important and worthy of his time than everyone else. Why is that?
I guess it is my fault for sticking to my opinions. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I don't appreciate you basing your response on the idea that I'm a $0 service customer, so that I shouldn't expect anything. Nothing is ever free. My public photos drive clicks to the site and therefore paying customers. I don't get paid for that service, but you do.
We are going to have to agree to disagree on the emails. You say "simply not true", but ignore the simple fact that unless I pay for something that was previously otherwise zero cost, my photos will be deleted. Your counter argument to that is that at least the site is still up and running or that I can download the photos I already have archived. Again, that's your choice to try to bring the site to profitability, for your own financial benefit.
I'm glad you have so many happy customers. Seriously! I'm also not upset or angry and I don't appreciate being boxed in like some freeloading curmudgeon. You asked why one would move on from one of your services and I responded in kind with what I felt was valid feedback. Nothing more, nothing less.
"Reminder: Your account is in violation of our free account limits."
So, here is my question... is it easy to locate AND change the privacy settings?
The instructions suggest that I can't search for my private images AND simply remove or change the privacy of them.
https://www.flickrhelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/4404078163732-C...
See also: the directory https://github.com/relink2013/Awesome-Self-hosting-for-the-w..., that collects "self-hostable services with native mobile app clients." This project should be on there! (Right now, the only entries in the Photos category are two [closed-source!] Synology offerings, and one other app that's not E2E-encrypted. You're better than these — go claim your crown.)
We've a discussion to add an option in-app to configure the endpoint @ https://github.com/ente-io/ente/discussions/504
If all the applications are free software, it's obvious you can do that even if it means recompiling it (minus for iOS, sorry) — I believe it's ok if they have the option described somewhere deep in a FAQ or on-prem setup instructions.
But the very fact that the best directory for this kind of thing that I could find, is so spartan and unmaintained, tells you a lot about how rare this combination of features is.
And thank you for the pointers, we'll try to get ourselves added here :)
[1]: https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted
[1]: https://www.calculator.net/permutation-and-combination-calcu...
About auth, I'm not sure the claim in the readme is entirely correct:
> Two years ago, while building Ente Photos, we realized that there was no open source end-to-end encrypted authenticator app.
Surely bitwarden existed and had 2fa support two years ago? Granted it's not only an authenticator app...
Ed:[I guess 2fa is/was a pay-only feature, so only source-available? ]
Looks like auth is a great dedicated 2fa app by the way, surprised I've not come across it before.
Also, the feature to store 2FA tokens is only available on Bitwarden's paid plan, while with Ente it's free.
Not totally. It still protects from the password being disclosed via other means (e.g. server db leak).
But that is also why I'm not overly concerned by the bitwarden model: in client compromise (ie phone), attacker gets both password and totp secret. But so too in many examples of server compromise.
Seperate totp app doesn't really mitigate any risk factors - but a seperate hw token/device do.
You could have 2fa only on phone, password manager only on desktop - but then logging in anywhere on your phone is inconvenient.
Then again: "Security is not a convenience".
Cool app, even better now that the server code is open source !
So, I am traditionally somebody who self hosts a lot of stuff. I am not allergic to paying a fee to have something hosted by someone else - but one of my conditions to doing this is that there is an easy way to migrate away from the cloud offering should I choose to in the future.
To give an example, I use Tailscale HEAVILY right across all my self hosted stuff. It is absolutely central to everything I do - and I'd find it very hard to live without it. I am totally comfortable with this because Headscale exists, which is an open source implementation of Tailscale. If for some reason Tailscale starts making decisions I don't like, or perhaps the pricing changes in a way I am not a fan of, I have the option of trading some convenience.
I am really happy to see your server is open source. That is amazing news, and makes me feel a lot more interested in your product. I wanted to ask a few questions though:
* Let's say I've signed up with your service, and am hosting a bunch of stuff with you. I decide after 6 months I don't like some changes to the pricing model or something. How does one get their data out of the `cloud` ente.io - and into a self hosted instance of the server? Is there any data loss during this process?
* Your clients are not open source. I totally understand this. Do they however support talking to a different backend (like for example a self hosted Ente instance)?
* And finally - how would you say your tool compares to the two main open source Google Photos replacements, Immich and Photoprism?
> data out
You can use our Desktop app[1] or CLI[2] to export your data, incrementally. There's a toggle within our Desktop app that will perform this operation continuously into a directory of your choosing. You can of course script the CLI however you'd like.
There is no data-loss, you export what you import.
> clients are not open source
Our clients have always been open source. You can find them within our monorepo here[3].
Currently you have to pass a flag at build time to configure the endpoint, but there's a discussion[4] to add an option in-app instead.
> Immich and Photoprism
Ente comes with e2ee[5] and replication strategies[6]. The former means that we've to run ML on the Edge, while Immich and Photoprism can run ML on their servers. If your primary use case is self-hosting, Immich is the more "intelligent" option. If you value convenience, Ente is the one.
[1]: https://ente.io/downloads/desktop
[2]: https://github.com/ente-io/cli
[3]: https://github.com/ente-io/ente
[4]: https://github.com/ente-io/ente/discussions/504
Just to jump in cause I was curious myself. I think your question is answered here:
"Command Line Utility for exporting data from Ente"
[1]. https://twitter.com/VishnuKVMD/status/1253324405813284868?t=...
We had opensourced our server[1] yesterday, which is perhaps why we are on the front page. Stoked to be here
Ente had launched on HN[2] a while ago and has been sustainably growing since.
We took the feedback from our Show HN seriously and have since
- undergone a cryptography audit [3] - published our replication strategy [4] - added requested features (family plans, collaborative albums and links, ...) [5][6][7] - made progress with Edge ML [8][9] - built a CLI for incremental data exports (our desktop app supports this as well) [10] - and in general matured as a company [11]
Also, apart from our source code, our Figma[12] is public as well.
If you've feedback on what we could do better, please do share, it'd be very helpful.
And if you've any questions, do ask, I'd love to make myself useful.
[1]: https://ente.io/blog/open-sourcing-our-server/
[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28347439
[3]: https://ente.io/blog/cryptography-audit/
[4]: https://ente.io/reliability
[5]: https://ente.io/blog/family-plans
[6]: https://ente.io/blog/collaborative-albums/
[7]: https://ente.io/blog/collect-photos/
[8]: https://ente.io/blog/image-search-with-clip-ggml/
[9]: https://ente.io/blog/desktop-ml-beta/
[10]: https://github.com/ente-io/cli
[11]: https://ente.io/blog/reflections-on-trusting-trust/
[12]: https://www.figma.com/file/SYtMyLBs5SAOkTbfMMzhqt/ente-Visua...