TLDR: Want an easy way to share some, but not all, photos between family members – and create merged photo albums from vacations.

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I’m here because I’m looking for something that I can’t seem to find an easy solution for. I’m wondering if I’m on the right track with one idea though – and I’m definitely open to other suggestions.

My wife and I each take a lot of random photos and screenshots and things we don’t want to share with each other (and we probably don’t want to be bothered with each other’s random stuff), so we don’t want to just do something like turn on Partner Sharing on Google Photos.

However, when we go on vacation and each of us takes photos on our own phone, it would be great to merge those into one nice album to go through and keep the best photos.

And then there’s the one-off photo or two we’d like to share with each other from time to time.

I’m looking for something to make that easy.

My only though right now is to leave Google Photos as the main storage location but then also set up Synology Photos or some such solution. But I haven’t quite put together how that solves the problem.

Note: Free is great, but I’m willing to pay for a professional solution… Prefer one time costs as opposed to expensive subscriptions though. Also, I am very tech savvy. I can set up whatever is needed.

Thanks for any suggestions!

  • AnApexBread@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    My wife and I each take a lot of random photos and screenshots and things we don’t want to share with each other (and we probably don’t want to be bothered with each other’s random stuff), so we don’t want to just do something like turn on Partner Sharing on Google Photos.

    You can specify what gets shared with partner sharing. My wife and I have partner sharing set up so that it automatically shares photos of our kids with each other but not anything else.

  • GbyBE@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Synology photos is a nice solution if you want to organize photos and each have your own library (that your devices can back up to automatically). You can then move selected photos to the shared library and put them in an album (or not). You can also share photos or albums via a link.

    It’s not perfect, but it seems to do what you’re trying to achieve.

  • sk1nT7@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Immich - Google photo alternative.

    You can freely select photos into an album and then invite users to the album. All your photos remain to your user account and sharing happens via manually created albums. Want to leave one specific picture out? Sure, just do not add it to the shared album.

  • BunkerMoewe@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    The thing that comes to mind for me is a self hosted NAS or Cloud Storage (depending from where you want to access your stuff). These solutions are relatively easy to set up and allow you to store many photos with good access control. It may not be exactly the thing you’re looking for but it’s an easy and expandable solution.