this post was submitted on 26 Apr 2026
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Is there a way to auto backup from iPhones? (lemmy.zip)
submitted 3 months ago by eyesaremosaics@lemmy.zip 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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[–] irmadlad@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Synctrain

With Synctrain you can securely synchronize files with other devices that have Syncthing installed. You can choose to synchronize full folders, or choose specific files. With Synctrain you can also stream audio and video files from other devices. When you synchronize files, all changes, including deleting files, also happen on your other devices.

Am I missing something here? If so, spool me up.

If I understand correctly, iOS apps don't run continuously in the background which doesn't match OP's 'automatic' requirement. But, I mean....tap the app, sit the phone down for a few minutes, and viola! Now if you are one to take hundreds of pictures daily, and you haven't backed up in a while, you might want to disable 'auto-lock' temporarily so the screen doesn't time out, or you can keep up with regular backups. iOS doesn't expose the photo library as a regular file system, so the app uses the system photo picker API to access new pictures, and you have to point Mobius to the DCIM folder iirc.

So, ok not fully automatic, might involve one or two steps depending on the time span between backups, but it would work. I just backed up 131 photos in less than the time it took me to type this comment.

[–] B0rax@feddit.org 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You are right, it can indeed sync fotos. But due to the nature of iOS, it can not do full system backups (but no app from the App Store can do that) If all you want to backup are fotos, then it can do that.

[–] irmadlad@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

it can not do full system backups

Sure, I get that. Not kicking you in the cods, I just understood OP's request was related to photos. No worries, all good.

[–] eyesaremosaics@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 months ago

Yep the unreliable background tasks are a major hurdle here