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Comment by iknowstuff | Hacker News Reader

I tried it, but unfortunately the complete lack of auto-categorization in all of those e2ee photo storage apps renders them unusable for anyone with a large library. Ente is not the first one to do this, there are many others with similarly lacking UX, like MEGA.

Both Apple Photos and Google Photos:

1. have easy search by location on a map of the world.

2. allow browsing to any date in an instant.

3. index photos by objects/faces and allow for instant searching - Apple even does it on-device.

Also, frankly, I don't trust you to stay around for long, so I would appreciate the option to store encrypted photos on a cloud of my choosing that I already pay for, with a separate subscription for using your app. Not sure what the Venn diagram of <cares about privacy>, <willing to pay for your storage>, <needs excellent browsing experience> looks like.

Looking forward to an app which works for people with large libraries. :)

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All the features you mention are already addressed in the original post as planned future developments. Knowing that they are planned makes me put my trust more in Ente than in Mega (which I use as an alternative to Dropbox and am very satisfied with). Not that there’s anything wrong with confirming interest in their planned features; I’m just pointing Ente’s plans out for anyone who scrolls right to the comments.

As for possible bankruptcy, you can never be too certain, but it’s easier to stay in business with Indian costs of living than US. (The company is located in India.)

Have you tried the Synology Photos app (https://www.synology.com/en-global/DSM70/SynologyPhotos [1])

While it does have some kinks it's surprisingly good and has the features you are looking for in a locally hosted/publicly available option. You do have to buy one of their NAS's however.

I have moved over to this partly for privacy and partly due to cost (I produce way too many photos per year to store them economically at Google)

[1] fyi this is the reasonably 'new' instantiation as linked to here, they EOL'd the very old, different app of the same name from their v old NAS's. Adding that here in case anyone has or buys an old NAS, you may get the old version of the app - I think you need a NAS with a decent processor to perform the face detection etc.

The biggest problem I've faced with their app suite is it seems to make my disks spin 24/7, constantly seeking even if there is zero external activity. It wouldn't be such a big problem if I didn't live in a small apartment and have to listen to them seek all night. Other people have reported the issue, but it doesn't seem like they plan on addressing it.

I think it only does this until the catalogue has been indexed, depending on what options are enabled. For instance, if face matching is enabled then it has to process all of the pictures for faces and group them.

I'll be honest I keep my NAS in a purpose built server closet in my house which is shielded.

Maybe costs of SSDs are coming down enough you could use those instead?

I personally would want both options. I use mylio with many similar features and it has e2ee but you manage your own space / cloud and your still paying a monthly fee.

For the non nerd friends, managing your own cloud space is mostly a non starter although. The best choice is cloud storage managed by the provider as an option, along with the self hosted option.

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