gphotos-sync has been archived #1
Replies: 9 comments 16 replies
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So sad to see this end. It was a real piece of mind to know that I had an up to date backup even if my account got hacked. I'm crossing my fingers there will be a new API in the future. |
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Amazing work for almost a decade @gilesknap 🙏 kudos Anyone reading - go and +1 the issue: https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/368779600?pli=1 |
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done! |
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Nice work @gilesknap You know, a decade is a lifetime! Thanks! <3 |
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no worries, it was fun while it lasted! |
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@gilesknap |
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Thank you so much for this work, over such a long period of time. It gave me great peace of mind to know that (even if Google close my account for some reason) that I'd still have access to my photos (and could share it with other things, like Plex). I've recommended this to many of my friends who share similar concerns/needs. |
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Thank you so much for your work on this project. I've used this for years and it has given me valuable piece of mind that all of my memories aren't just locked behind the benefit of Google's good graces, which can and have disappeared for any number of reasons. I'll be looking at switching off of Google's photo management altogether because of the cessation of this project. Thank you again for all your work on this. |
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I'm going to continue using Google Photos. It's a bit too good to give up. But I am currently building a Kubernetes Cluster upon which I may host a photo management alternative. https://github.com/gilesknap/tpi-k3s-ansible. |
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If I ever do decide to run a different Photos service, then I'm going to have to write a Google Photos Takeout reconstruction tool to enable sensible exit from Googe Photos. I have had a look around and it does not seem that anyone has done a robust solution for this yet. If anyone has seen such a thing please post here as other previous users of gphotos-sync might make good use of it. |
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The application successfully processes albums. Several options are available:
However, I am not sure about the comments. I hope Google will provide a better solution in the future. |
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OK that sounds pretty cool then thanks for the reference. I don't think Google have much incentive to help people exit Google Photos, Takeout is a DPA compliance vehicle. So don't hold out too much hope for an approved solution. |
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A little bit off topic: Just FYI, according to EU GDPR laws Google has to provide a data transfer solution. It's exactly to prevent vendor lock-in. It falls under "Right to Access" of the legislative https://www.privacyengine.io/blog/how-to-make-a-gdpr-request-for-information/ The more people request it, the more is Google incentivized to keep APIs alive as otherwise they'd have to do this manually or hit by enormous fines. |
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@jokob-sk not off topic! That is what I was referring to above, Data Protection Act compliance is provided by Takeout I believe. The law does not say it has to be in a lovely format!! |
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https://github.com/simulot/immich-go this will upload into immich with metadata apparently. So if your exit plan includes immich, it could be fine. Though I'm not familiar enough with the subject to know if it does everything you'd want either. |
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FYI this library uses chromedp (through gphotos-cdp) to sync google photos on a schedule: https://github.com/spraot/gphotos-sync Since it uses a browser instead of an API it's not impacted by this change. |
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I've just started working on this recently, but the maintainer of the library it's inspired by claims he's had it running for years without touching it. The code for interacting with the page is unchanged since 2019 and is working for me still. No guarantees though! This approach is probably much slower than the API, but I've just implemented some improvements including async downloads that looks like it doubles the speed. |
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That all sounds very positive. I can see you have put lots of work into the project recently. Thanks for continuing the fight :-) |
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@spraot I've never seen chromedp before but used selenium for this kind of thing e.g.. Do you think chromedp is a better choice? |
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I haven't considered any alternatives, I didn't want to rewrite gphotos-cdp. I don't know if selenium integrates enough with chrome to be able to handle auth and downloads as well, so that's what I'd start looking into if you are curious. |
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@gilesknap (and others): I can confirm that @spraot's solution works very well now :-) |
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Amazing work! Thanks for working on this all the time! Moved everything to hetzner + Nextcloud + Photprism and Immich. so much better. |
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gphotos-sync: 19th Sept 2015 - 4th Oct 2024
Introduction
Sadly, I have taken the decision to archive the gphotos-sync project today.
Google will be changing the authorization scopes for Google Photos on March 15th 2025 as described here. There is no way that a backup tool like gphotos-sync can operate under the new scopes.
For a discussion on the impact see this issue.
You can still use the current version of the software until March but after that it will cease to operate. Over the last 9 years with the help of many contributors we have ironed out most of the bugs in this tool. Those few remaining issues outstanding, I'm afraid I don't have motivation to spend time on them when there are only a few months of operation left.
Therefore, I'm giving notice early so that people may have a chance to make their last backup.
Hope for the future
This issue on Google Tracker has a response from the developers saying that they may look into an incremental backup solution in the future. This may mean that Google would provide their own solution or perhaps they would consider some way of opening the API up - if so, I would bring gphotos-sync back or perhaps write something new.
Alternatives to Google Photos?
I for one will still be using Google Photos. It is the best photo management tool available that I have found so far. Occasional, non-incremental backup is available using Takeout.
I originally wrote gphotos-sync because there was no read-only viewer and I was concerned about accidentally deleting loads of photos and not noticing until it was too late to recover. These days I don't really bother curating my photos because the search and auto album features are good enough. In a way that seems like a loss, I used to be really invested in my photo collection but not so much now. But the truth is I have less need for incremental backup than I did when I first relinquished control of my collection to Google.
Thanks Everyone!
This has been the most successful open-source project I ever made, and it has been great fun. Thanks so much to all those of you who contributed code fixes, features and bug reports over the last 9 years.
I've made gphotos-sync-discussion just in case people still want to make any comments. You won't be able to create issues on the archived project, but feel free to:
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