Automatic photo syncing from Android to NextCloud§

This is really nice. It should go a long way to replacing Google Photos, which was the last holdout for me of something that was useful on my Android phone that only Google provided.

Nextcloud Photos is not great for photo browsing, so I’d let to set something like [[PhotoPrism]] up at some point.

How I did it§

Then, if you turn on ‘Auto upload’ (in the sidebar of the app), that will let you find photo folders anywhere on your device (internal and on SD card), and set them to be auto-uploaded to your [[NextCloud]] instance.

I’d struggled with [[syncthing]] in the past for syncing photos, I can’t remember the exact details now, but I think it was pointing it at a folder on SD card that it didn’t own, something like that. So the fact that NextCloud can work on folders that are on the SD card is great. (I might be misremembering the syncthing problem.)

You can set various settings for how that folder is uploaded (remote folder location, upload only on wi-fi, etc). For the remote folder I’ve kept it as the default /InstantUpload/Camera so far.

I use [[Open Camera]], which you can set to take photos to a folder on the SD card.

So et voila, I set Open Camera to take photos to /sdcard/DCIM/Camera, then set NextCloud to auto-upload /sdcard/DCIM/Camera to NextCloud. I also have the NextCloud sync app set up on my desktop, so the photos pop up pretty quickly on my laptop, too! It’s nice.

Things to tweak§

I’d like some structure to the uploads, so I’m going to try the setting ‘Use subfolders’, which should put the uploaded photos in year/month folders

Can I just point the auto uploads at the Photos folder rather than InstantUpload?

I met set the photos to auto-delete as well from the camera, once I’m happy that everything is going safely to NextCloud and getting backed up, as I have bugger all free space on my old phone

Migrate existing photos from Google Photos to NextCloud

Something better for browsing the photos online

Setting up Calibre-Web and koreader (via YunoHost and NextCloud)§

[[Calibre-Web]] is a web interface for your Calibre library.

I have a [[Kobo]] and I use [[koreader]] on it. koreader can download books from a Calibre-web install.

You could just copy your books directly between your Kobo and your computer via USB. But I find often when I want to download a new book, I’m not near my computer. So this is a nice way of being able to access your library anywhere you have wifi. And it looks nice with the book covers and all. If you feel bad about not having a physical bookshelf, you can show this to people so they can see how many clever books you’ve bought but not read.

⥅ [[images/calibre-web.png]]

Installing Calibre-Web§

You could manually self-install it somewhere, but I installed it on my [[YunoHost]] server, which I already have set up for various other things, including [[NextCloud]].

During the install there’s an option to create a shared folder where it will look for your ebook. The default is a directory that is also available in NextCloud: /home/yunohost.multimedia/share/eBook. I used this, as I already use NextCloud for syncing some files between devices. You could sync other ways if you wanted - see the next section.

Syncing your Calibre library to Calibre-Web§

OK - so we’ll assume you have [[Calibre]] on your local box already with your ebook library in it.

Now you want to sync your Calibre library to where your Calibre-Web install is expecting to find books.

Two main filesync options I would possibly use here - [[syncthing]] or [[NextCloud]].

I love syncthing and use it a lot, but haven’t fiddled much with it on YunoHost yet.

I went with NextCloud for now, as it already includes the ‘Shared multimedia’ folder that the Calibre-Web default install used.

You need the NextCloud app installed on your desktop in order to sync. By default it’ll sync to and from a folder in your home directory called ‘NextCloud’.

I had an existing Calibre library in a different place on my box, so I moved it to the eBook folder in my NextCloud folder (instructions on moving your library as per How to Backup, Move and Export Your Library in Calibre - Calibre Blog)

Pulling the books down to koreader§

Calibre-Web exposes your books as an OPDS catalog. koreader has built-in support for OPDS catalogs so you can browse them straight from koreader. (https://github.com/koreader/koreader/wiki/OPDS-support).

In koreader:

Go to OPDS catalog
Choose Add new catalog
Put the address of your Calibre-Web install and your YunoHost user creds (LDAP working on all these apps is super handy)

I found a few bits of flakiness with the OPDS catalog.

It appears that only some catalogs work
- e.g. unread books works
- others show "catalog not found"

But, all being well, you should now be able to download your books from your library straight to your ebook reader.

Misc Notes§

Is it worth it? I’m not convinced, if you’re just using it on one device - maybe just easier to sync directly.

That said, syncing the library to NextCloud seems like a reasonable idea anyway. It then gets picked up automatically in my server backups.

I’m using [[Z-Library]] to download books that I’ve paid for already via the Kobo store, but want to read DRM-free on koreader. I own them dammit, I can read them wherever I want.