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Is there a way to auto backup from iPhones? (lemmy.zip)
submitted 6 months ago by to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
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I've set up a self hosted photo system with immich, and it works doing automatic backups of photos from the filesystem, eg using termux/cron, although it is a bit flakey. Immich also works for backup, but it's less ideal.

iPhone seems to be a lot harder, backup in immich doesn't work, it seems that iPhones have a complicated was of handling background tasks which make background backups very difficult.

Does anyone know a way of doing any kind of backup automatically, without plugging in a cable and without using iCloud?

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[–] 15 points 6 months ago* (2 children)

Have you tried keeping immich active for the initial large photo backup so that the background task backup only has the newly taken photos to take care off?
I imagine you've checked the Immich faq already:
https://docs.immich.app/FAQ/#why-is-background-backup-on-ios-not-working

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 6 months ago (1 child)

    Yes I've tried following the FAQ, I'm trying to help family members to use it so we can collect photos together, and these hands-on tricks are a bit harder to convince people to do. An automatic background backup would be much easier

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago

    The only thing I can think of then is to get your family members to start curating the photos into different albums using the Immich app. That way the sync gets to work and you get the usage statistics of the app up higher allowing the background task to run. If you create some shared albums and ask them to contribute photos to them f.e.
    Or simply telling them about your shared album and getting them to check it out using the app.

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    • [–] 5 points 6 months ago (5 children)

    The photosync app is amazing! I think I paid a onetime fee of 5$ for pro

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 6 months ago (3 children)

    Have you tried it yourself? Does it work hands-off in a set and forget way, or do you have to open it for the background tasks to run?

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    Yeah, I use it every day and have synced over 80k photos and videos to my servers with it. I absolutely love it. I know of no other option and I do not trust Immich or Nextcloud sync. I have never ever had an issue with photosync and if there is ever a rare error it tells me why.

    I have it set to rsync to my local server. I open the app. It has already selected the recent media that is unsynced to said location. I then press sync and it does it in the background.

    I believe the paid level above pro has some sort of auto sync based on location but I chose to not get that because I didn't need it.

    Super, super recommend!

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 6 months ago (1 child)

    Do you need to remember to open it regularly? Or is it sending you notifications? You mention that you open it and then it does a sync, how often do you need to do this?

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago

    I don’t see notifications in the setting. Premium has auto transfer for 2,500¥ which is like 15$ or so, but I think I only paid 5$ for pro which is enough.

    It’s on my home screen, I do it once a day or so. Depends how many photos you take. I probably have close to 100,000 from 2017 to today so I back them up regularly.

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    • [–] 5 points 6 months ago (10 children)

    Works just fine for me in iOS 26. Altought sometimes it doesnt do it automatically in bg and I have to open the app

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago* (5 children)

    iOS devices are pretty horrible at keeping a background task going unless apple owns it. Probably why they can get great battery life, but also seems pretty anti competitive. Not even google's photo backup works well unless you manually open the app once in a while.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    They do work, but Apple has a shitty system of ranking apps based on usage for background keep alive.

    The more you open the app. the higher it'll rank in priority and background upload will work.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    That is very much the problem here, I would like to set up a set-and-forget system for family members so we can collect photos together easily. But that goes against how apple systems work

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (1 child)

    Aahhh i see, in that case, replave for them the default gallery app icon with immich; they won't notice :D

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    Are you opening it manually? Unfortunately I need to get it working set and forget if possible. And I'm trying to avoid icloud

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (2 children)

    Why set&forget? You never open your gallery?

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    • [–] 3 points 6 months ago (7 children)

    Mobius sync is syncthing for iPhone. It works really well.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 6 months ago (6 children)

    Have you tried using it yourself? One of the troubles I've found is apps saying they will do something but it doesn't happen because the OS has obscure ways of controlling background tasks. And it prioritises apps that get opened manually, which doesn't work for a backup that is meant to be set and forget

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    You're doing the biggest ad against iPhones. I was planning to get one but man it would suck if I can't even have a background task of my own choosing

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (2 children)

    It's on my mother in law's iPhone, and connects to my server running syncthing. It's very reliable. Been running for around 6 months with no issues. I have 4 mobile devices connecting to my server with syncthing, 3 android 1 iPhone

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    • [–] 2 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    I'm not sure how it does it, but my Synology NAS can act as a Time Machine server and my laptop backs up to it, no cloud involved. So I know it's possible, but I don't know what kind of open source solutions are available.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 6 months ago

    Yes I was trying to find out about time machine related approaches, which could work from my NAS as well (ok it's actually a rpi). From what I can tell auto backup from a laptop is possible, however the only way apple lets you backup from your phone is if you plug a cable into a computer so iTunes does the backup (and then afterwards goes to the NAS). Direct from phone seems to be blocked

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    • [–] 1 point 6 months ago* (2 children)

    My cousin uses synology drive to back up her iPhone to my personal NAS.

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    • [–] 0 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    Searching the App store for synchthing didn't turn up synchthing but it did turn up a bunch of sync type apps like

    • Synctrain
    • Resilio sync
    • Goodsync

    ....etc. Might be worthwhile to try out a few.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 6 months ago

    Yes thanks. Immich would be fine as well based on the description of what these apps do, but the problem seems to be having it run in background.

    All these solutions need regular manual intervention, while a backup system needs to be automatic and reliable. From an iPhone the only backup option I can see is through their cloud unfortunately (or potentially through regularly plugging into a cable)

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