Your Gmail storage is almost full. What now?
Your Gmail storage is almost full. Some of the less tech-savvy people I know didn’t even know what that meant. Photos are a big thing in the Philippines and Asia. But someone I know from the Philippines deleted their photos in Google Desktop, not realizing that it would also delete the same photos on their Android phone.
Most if not all my friends and family in the Philippines refuse to pay for Google Drive, OneDrive, iCloud, and the like. That’s just not something in the budget. I don’t even have friends in Europe who pay for these cloud services.
Everyone just accepts that they have to delete their photos. But it doesn’t have to be this way. In this post, I propose some solutions where the effort, expertise, and free-ness varies so that non-techy people like my family and techy people like most of my friends can get something out of this.
I’ve used most of the following solutions over the years, from my days as a poor high school student to the present, where I have some technical expertise and the budget to rent a server.
Diversify Your Cloud Storage Solutions
☺️ Easy. Good solution for non-techies.
☺️ Quick. Not a lot of upfront effort required.
☺️ Free. No need to pay money.
😥 No AI features. Unless you use another Google account?
😥 Could get cumbersome in the long run.
😥 No internet, no photos. You need internet to access your old photos.
😥 Data not easily accessible from phone. Can’t easily show off your old photos to friends.
😥 Not very privacy-friendly. You entrust your data with another company.
Requirements
On this section, I propose two similar solutions. You’ll need to know how to download files, handle files on a computer, and upload files to a website. If you don’t know that, a lot of references are available. You could either consult a magazine or a TikTok video, depending on your preference.
Get a New Gmail / Apple Account
My initial suggestion would be to just make a different Gmail account. 🤷 Although managing two accounts can be cumbersome. I mean hey, it’s that or lose your photos. Although, it could.
Use a different service for your old photos
You could also choose different services that offer some free storage. The most generous offer I know is mega.io which offers 20 GB free. Download your old photos from Google or Apple, sign up for Mega, and upload them. Bim bam boom!
After verifying that your photos were indeed uploaded to the new cloud storage provider, delete the photos from Google Photos and problem solved.
Then find other free services to sign up to. Rinse and repeat.
Disadvantages
One drawback is managing multiple accounts and websites. Plus, you might not be able to access your old photos quickly on your phone. If that’s a good compromise for you, then this is your solution. Otherwise, read on.
You can counter this by using a password manager like Bitwarden, which I should probably write about in the future.
Let’s Get Physical: Save Them In A Hard Drive
☺️ Easy. Good solution for non-techies.
☺️ Quick. Still not a lot of upfront effort required.
☺️ Data accessible from your laptop.
☺️ Save it and forget it until you need it again.
😥 Private. The hard drive is physically with you, and not with another company.
😐 One-time expense to buy a hard-drive.
😥 No internet, no photos. You need internet to access your old photos.
😥 No AI features. You need internet to access your old photos.
😥 Sharing is cumbersome. You have to physically bring your hard drive and have access to a computer to show off your old photos.
For those who prioritize privacy and have many high-quality photos, a physical hard drive is a reliable solution. Like the previous solution, you’ll need to know how to download files, connect an external hard drive to your computer, and choose the download location.
The first step is to buy an external hard drive, connect it to your computer, and tell your computer to download the files directly to that hard drive.
Actually, if you have a computer and its storage isn’t even full, you can forget about buying the external hard drive and this solution essentially becomes free. Unless your hard drive gets full of course.
Disadvantages
The most obvious downside is the cost. The second is also clear. If you spontaneously want to show photos from your vacation from like 9 years ago while you’re outside, then it’s a no go. Unless you bring your external hard drive everywhere and you have access to a computer. Not very practical though!
Install Immich on a Server
☺️ Data accessible from your laptop.
☺️ Private. The hard drive is physically with you, and not with another company.
☺️ AI features. Facial recognition, search.
☺️ Easily share albums. Has facial recognition features.
🤓 Technical. Not for the faint of heart.
🤓 Could take a while to setup and maintain.
😐 Some photos could be available online. You need internet to access your old photos.
😐 Recurring monthly expense but cheaper than if you pay for a cloud storage provider.
As I was writing this, I realized describing what Immich is and why I love it needs a stand-alone post and so I wrote that.
For a birds’ eye view on how to install Immich for those who are considering to self-host, here is a quick and dirty guide. I will leave searching the specifics to you, but don’t hesitate to email me in case you need help.
Get a Domain
First, I needed a domain to make it accessible from anywhere with Internet. So I had to buy a domain. I currently host it on the domain ja.redja.red that I pay around 12 euros a year for. That’s less than one thousand Philippine pesos per year.1
Get a VPS Provider
Next, I needed a VPS provider. I used to use Vultr but it was US-based and I feel like I’m losing some money from the conversion of dollars to euros, so I eventually ended up using IONOS. I think Immich needs like 4GB RAM for its AI features. But hey, I use my VPS to host this website and several other self-hosted open-source apps, why not throw Immich into the mix?
That IONOS link might earn me and you some money if you sign up and pay, by the way.
Setup Your Server
Set your DNS settings to point to your server’s IP address.
Enable your VPS to serve webpages. To do this, I installed and setup the open-source Caddy. Let me know if you’re interested in a blog post on that. Nginx could also work, but it’s been a while since I’ve last used that.
Install Docker and Docker compose because Immich’s recommended installation (and my recommended installation) method is via docker-compose. Follow the instructions and you’re golden!
You can also optionally install Portainer as a separate app if you want to manage your Docker containers and stacks using a web interface. I’ve written about it before in this blog but I feel I should also make an update soon.
Enjoy
With some minimal monthly costs, you keep your privacy with Immich and you don’t get those pesky emails about your full storage again.
Footnotes
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You might get away with hosting it in a local server and use Tailscale to access it but the solution feels flimsy, and I’m currently not in a place where I can host a physical server, so VPS it is. ↩