I built an app to backup Live Photos from iPhone to external hard drives

53•xmasterdev•2d ago

I noticed so many iPhone users are dealing with the same storage nightmare. Here's a common scenario that sounds familiar to a lot of people:

The widespread problem: iPhone storage fills up crazy fast, not everyone has a Mac, many don't want to pay monthly for iCloud storage, and home NAS setups aren't realistic for most users. The manual approach of creating folders and selecting photos one by one is tedious, and keeping up with new photos becomes overwhelming

So I built an app called BackiGo that addresses this exact pain point - it allows direct backup of Live Photos from iPhone to external hard drives, no Mac needed.

What makes it useful:

Backs up your Live Photos with all the motion intact

Can restore Live Photos back to your iPhone camera roll

Super easy to backup new photos

You can browse and view all your saved Live Photos directly from the external drive without having to restore them first

You can test it out with up to 500 photos & videos backup before deciding if it works for your needs

Comments

gerdemb•1d ago

Where is the link? How can iPhone backup directly to an external hard drive?

Amorymeltzer•6h ago

I believe it's this: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/backigo-live-photos-backup/id6...

criddell•3h ago

Plug it in to the USB port on the phone. iPhone Pro can transfer at up to 20 Gbps but the non-pro models are much slower.

The iPhone camera can also shoot directly to an attached SSD.

supportengineer•3h ago

I have bad news for you, that's not a real iPhone

enzanki_ars•3h ago

This is a real feature of iPhones since the iPhone 15 Pro model. https://support.apple.com/en-in/109041

discostrings•2h ago

> iPhone Pro can transfer at up to 20 Gbps

Citation/proof strongly needed on 20 Gbps

criddell•1h ago

Right you are. I was going off my (bad) memory. It’s a 10 Gbps port.

1970-01-01•6h ago

How is this different from iMazing?

https://imazing.com/backup-iphone-ipad#:~:text=Choose%20iPho...

msh•5h ago

It’s more like PhotoSync as it only does photos

tempodox•4h ago

I loved the idea until I saw that it's only available as a subscription.

keroro•5h ago

How much does it cost?

recury•5h ago

In-App Purchases

BackiGo Pro Yearly (1 Year) $6.99

BackiGo Pro Monthly (1 Month) $0.99

BackiGo Pro Lifetime $14.99

er0k•5h ago

I just use rsync, works great

rsync•5h ago

Would you explain how you are using rsync to backup photos on an iPhone ?

I'm not aware of an iOS app named "rsync" and ... presumably you don't have a shell ... ?

slicktux•4h ago

You can load the IPhone’s pictures on Linux using the folders namespace and then rsync from the loaded namespace to /local…

wood_spirit•4h ago

I use a usb cable and a Linux laptop to copy to a couple of external hard drives (which I store separately). It’s all manual but not too orrenous although i ought backup more often. The biggest hassle is accessing the new heic format on pretty much everything.

Could it all be made into a sd card image for a pi zero perhaps? Even with a web ui accessible over Wi-Fi? A basic cheap sync-cable-appliance that non-techies can easily use?

rsync•3h ago

I think I heard that the latest 'rclone' now, finally, support iCloud ... but I think there is an issue there because you can't sync full quality / RAW photos to icloud, can you ?

trinix912•3h ago

But does it work for Live Photos which is the main premise of this app?

gaudat•4h ago

>home NAS setups aren't realistic for most users

Citation needed. Get a Synology NAS and use their Photos app which backups Live photos on both iDevices and Androids. Buy it for life.

pdxandi•3h ago

I've been doing this for many years and am pretty happy with it. I can sync from my Android and my wife's iPhone. The Photos app is nice and smooth. Backups happen automatically in the background. It can even de-dupe and clean up old photos that have been backed up. All in all, quite pleased with it.

HuwFulcher•3h ago

You’re looking at £300ish for an entry level Synology and the storage. That isn’t a realistic expense for many users.

thenaturalist•2h ago

Let's be real, that's already far less approachable to 90% of consumers I know.

The simples hurdle just being knowledge.

The existence of NAS is probably an unknown unkown to a large part of the population.

Compare that to "there's an app for that" & plug USB.

Drastically simpler.

No skin in the game either way, but I can very much understand OPs reasoning and would reach the same conclusion.

kzisme•47m ago

Or checkout https://immich.app/ !

SwamyM•4h ago

I would love this if it allowed me to backup all photos taken with the iPhone to an external drive. Currently, Apple dumps all pictures (from the Camera, from iMessage, WhatsApp, etc.) into folder makes it difficult to backup just my pictures.

jlarocco•4h ago

I wouldn't use it personally, but I could see it being useful for my parents or family.

ifuse and rsync works fine for me.

mindwork•4h ago

Would immich work for this? You can run it locally in docker container

polymatter•3h ago

Thank you for including a non subscription “lifetime” payment option.

mfa1999•2h ago

Will it work with large (huge) photos libraries? Eg. 150k photos/videos - most of them in iCloud. Does it preserve album/folder structure?

QEMU: Define policy forbidding use of AI code generators

A new pyramid-like shape always lands the same side up

-2000 Lines of code

The Hollow Men of Hims

Gemini CLI

A new PNG spec

What Problems to Solve (1966)

The Offline Club

OpenAI charges by the minute, so speed up your audio

Libxml2's "no security embargoes" policy

Getting ready to issue IP address certificates

Build and Host AI-Powered Apps with Claude – No Deployment Needed

Writing a basic Linux device driver when you know nothing about Linux drivers

LM Studio is now an MCP Host

Better Auth, by a self-taught Ethiopian dev, raises $5M from Peak XV, YC

Deep Research as a Swim Coach

Ambient Garden

Iroh: A library to establish direct connection between peers

Building a Monostable Tetrahedron

FurtherAI (YC W24) Is Hiring for Software and AI Roles

CUDA Ray Tracing 2x Faster Than RTX: My CUDA Ray Tracing Journey

America’s incarceration rate is in decline

Interstellar Flight: Perspectives and Patience

Web Embeddable Common Lisp

Games run faster on SteamOS than Windows 11, Ars testing finds

Bot or human? Creating an invisible Turing test for the internet

LLM Hallucinations in Practical Code Generation

Is Lovable getting monetization wrong?

IBM's Dmitry Krotov wants to crack the 'physics' of memory

Primitive Kolmogorov complexity is computable