Synology Photos - Back Up Your Phone, Albums, Face & Place Search

What Synology Photos Really Is

Synology Photos is a free program that runs on your Synology NAS. It does the same job as Google Photos or iCloud - it keeps your pictures and lets you look at them from anywhere - except the pictures live in your own home, not on a company's computer.

A NAS is a small box, about the size of a lunchbox, that sits by your internet router and holds hard drives. Those drives are where your photos are stored. Because you own the box, there is no monthly storage bill, and no company is looking at your family pictures.

• No monthly fee - you already paid for the box and the drives.
• Your pictures stay private - they are in your house, on your hardware.
• Plenty of room - drives hold far more than a phone ever could.
• You are in control - you decide who sees what, and nothing is deleted behind your back.

Installing the Synology Photos Package

Before the phone app can do anything, the NAS itself needs the Synology Photos program installed. On a Synology, add-on programs are called packages, and you get them from a built-in store called Package Center.

On most newer Synology models, Synology Photos may already be installed for you. If you see it in the menu, you are ready. If not, Package Center is where it comes from. The exact button names can differ a little by DSM version, so if a name does not match, look for the closest wording.

• Sign in to your NAS from a web browser (this screen is called DSM).
• Open Package Center from the main menu.
• Search for "Synology Photos."
• Click Install and wait for it to finish.
• Once installed, it appears in your main menu like any other app.

The Phone App and Signing In

The Synology Photos phone app is how you will use this day to day. It is a free download for iPhone and for Android. Search your phone's app store for "Synology Photos" and install it.

The address is the part that trips people up. It might be a QuickConnect ID (a short nickname), or a web address, or numbers separated by dots. Whoever set up your NAS will know it. If that is me, it is written on the sheet I leave with you.

• Open the app. It will ask for your NAS address.
• Type the address for your NAS, or use the QuickConnect ID if you set one up.
• Enter the same user name and password you use to sign in to the NAS.
• If you turned on two-step sign-in, enter the code when asked.
• Once signed in, the app remembers you, so you do not do this every time.

Turning On Automatic Phone Backup

This is the most important feature. When you turn on automatic backup - sometimes called auto upload - the app copies every new photo and video from your phone to the NAS, all by itself. You take a picture, and a little later it is safely at home too.

I suggest backing up over Wi-Fi only, so it does not eat your cell phone data plan. Keep the phone plugged in during that first big backup. After the first time, only new pictures need to copy, so it stays quick and quiet.

• In the app, open the menu and look for Photo Backup or Auto Backup.
• Turn the switch on.
• Choose which folders to back up (the main Camera Roll is the key one).
• Choose whether to back up over Wi-Fi only, to save your cell data.
• Let it run. It shows progress as it uploads.

Personal Space vs Shared Space

Synology Photos has two areas, and understanding the difference clears up most confusion. Think of them as your private photo drawer and a family photo drawer.

Your automatic phone backup normally goes into your Personal Space, so it stays private to you. If you want certain pictures visible to the whole household, you can put them in the Shared Space, or share an album, which we cover later.

Where Your Photos Actually Live

It helps to know that behind the friendly app, your pictures are just ordinary files sitting in folders on the NAS drives. Nothing is locked away in a secret format. This is one reason a NAS gives peace of mind.

When your phone backs up, the app creates a folder on the NAS and drops your photos into it, organized by date. You can open that folder from a computer on your home network and see the actual picture files, exactly as your camera made them.

• Your photos are real files you can copy, not trapped in an app.
• If you ever stop using Synology Photos, the pictures are still right there.
• You can make an extra backup of that folder to another drive for safety.

Albums - Manual and Smart

An album is a collection of pictures grouped together, like a photo book. Synology Photos gives you two kinds: ones you build by hand, and clever ones that fill themselves.

To make a manual album, you select the pictures you want and choose Add to Album. A smart album is set up once with a rule, and then it keeps updating itself as new matching photos arrive. The wording of these menus can vary slightly by version, so look for the closest match.

• Manual album - you pick the photos yourself. Great for "Summer at the Lake" or "Grandkids."
• Smart album (conditional) - you set a rule, and it gathers matching photos on its own. For example, all photos from a certain date range, or with a certain tag.

The Timeline View

The timeline is the main view you see when you open the app - all your pictures laid out newest to oldest, grouped by day and month. It is the natural way to scroll back through your memories.

You can pinch the screen to zoom out and see whole months at a glance, then zoom back in to a single day. Scrolling to the very bottom takes you to your oldest pictures. It is a simple, familiar way to wander through the years.

• Scroll up for older photos, down for newer.
• Pinch to zoom between day, month, and year views.
• Tap any picture to see it full screen.
• Swipe left or right to move to the next or previous photo.

Face Recognition - Grouping People

Synology Photos can look at your pictures and group together the ones with the same person in them. This is called face recognition, and it happens quietly on your own NAS - the faces are never sent to any outside company.

It is not perfect. Sometimes it will think two people are the same, or split one person into two groups. You can correct it by merging groups or fixing a mislabeled face. Over time it gets better as you tidy it up.

• Turn on the People or face grouping feature in the app's settings.
• The NAS studies your photos in the background - this takes time at first.
• It gathers photos of each person into a group.
• You put a name on a group, like "Margaret" or "the grandkids."
• After that, you can tap a name to see every photo of that person.

Place and Map View

If your phone recorded where a picture was taken, Synology Photos can show your photos on a map. You see little clusters of pictures over the towns and places you visited.

Most phones quietly save the location inside each photo when you take it. Synology Photos reads that and pins the photo to the map. Tap a spot on the map, and you see every picture you took there - a lovely way to relive a trip.

• Only photos that have location saved will appear on the map.
• Older or scanned photos usually have no location, so they will not show.
• The location stays on your NAS - it is not shared with anyone.

Searching Your Photos

Once you have a lot of pictures, search is how you find the one you want in seconds instead of scrolling forever. Synology Photos lets you search several ways at once.

The search box is usually at the top of the app. Type a word and it looks across names, places, and, depending on your version, the contents of the pictures. It feels a bit like magic the first time it finds "all my photos of cake."

• By person - tap a named face to see all their photos.
• By place - search a town or use the map.
• By date - jump to a month or year.
• By what is in the picture - many versions can find things like "beach," "dog," or "birthday."

Freeing Space on Your Phone Safely

Once your photos are safely on the NAS, you may want to clear them off your phone to free up room. This is fine to do - but only after you are certain the backup worked. Rushing this step is how people lose pictures.

• Confirm the app shows the backup is complete, not still uploading.
• Open several backed-up photos on the NAS and make sure they open fully and look right.
• Check that both old and recent pictures are there, not just some.
• Only then, delete photos from the phone's camera roll to free space.

Sharing an Album by Link

One of the nicest things you can do is share an album with family. Synology Photos can create a web link to an album, so anyone you send it to can view the pictures in a browser - no app or account needed on their end.

• Open the album you want to share.
• Look for the Share option and choose to create a link.
• The NAS makes a web address you can copy.
• Send that link by text or email to the people you choose.
• They open the link and see the album in their web browser.

Downloading the Original Files

Sometimes you need the real, full-size picture file - to print it large, email it, or put it on another computer. Synology Photos always keeps your original, and you can download it anytime.

When you view a photo, there is a download or export option. Choosing it pulls the full-quality original from the NAS to your phone or computer. This is the same file your camera made, at full resolution, nothing shrunk.

• To get a large, sharp print made at a photo shop.
• To attach a picture to an email at full quality.
• To move favorites onto a computer or a USB stick.

Full Quality vs Compression

You may have heard that some photo services shrink your pictures to save space. This is called compression, and it can lower quality. Here is the good news about Synology Photos.

Synology Photos keeps your original, full-quality pictures. To make browsing fast, it also makes smaller preview copies called thumbnails - but those are extras. Your true, full-size original is always kept and can always be downloaded. Nothing is thrown away.

• Thumbnail - a small preview so the app loads quickly. Not your real photo.
• Original - the full-quality file your camera made. Always kept on the NAS.
• You always have the original, so quality is never lost.

How It Compares to Google Photos and iCloud

Google Photos and Apple iCloud are fine services. The big difference with Synology Photos is where your pictures live and who pays whom over time.

The trade is simple. The big services are easier to start but charge every month and hold your pictures on their computers. A NAS takes a bit more setup up front, then it is yours with no monthly bill and full privacy. Many folks happily use both.

Setting It Up for Several Family Members

A single NAS can serve the whole family. Each person gets their own account and their own private Personal Space, while a Shared Space holds the pictures everyone should see.

This way, your spouse's photos and your photos stay separate and private, but the grandkids' birthday pictures can sit in the Shared Space for all to enjoy. Setting up the accounts is a one-time job on the NAS.

• Each person gets a user account on the NAS with their own password.
• Each person's phone backs up into their own private Personal Space.
• Nobody can see another person's Personal Space.
• The Shared Space is where family photos everyone should see can go.

A Simple Photo Routine

You do not need to fuss over this. Once it is set up, a light routine keeps everything safe and tidy with just a few minutes now and then.

• Once a week, open the app on Wi-Fi and let any new photos finish backing up.
• Once a month, glance at the People groups and name any new faces.
• Every few months, make one album of your favorite recent pictures.
• Before clearing your phone, always confirm the backup as we described earlier.
• Once a year, think about an extra backup of the NAS folder for safety.

What's in the 27-page PDF

• What Synology Photos is, in plain words
• Installing it and signing in on your phone
• Turning on automatic phone backup so you never lose a picture
• Building albums, and searching by face and by place
• Freeing up space on your phone the safe way
• Sharing an album, and setting it up for the whole family

Why I wrote this

I write these as printable handouts because a guide you can keep in a drawer beats a web page you have to find again. No jargon, no judgment, no rushing. If you'd rather have someone sit beside you and go through it together, that's a flat $99 first visit with the 30-day follow-up included — serving Portage County from Atwater, Ohio. — Bill