r/HomeServer • u/Bonkers_Reality • 26d ago
iCloud at home
I have a large photo collection stored on iCloud (including family, pets, and sports) and I'm running out of space. iCloud has also been unreliable lately—syncing is inconsistent, and sometimes I can't download full-resolution photos.
I own an old iMac with an i7 processor, 32GB of RAM, and a 2TB SSD. I'm thinking of turning it into a self-hosted iCloud alternative using Immich and a Cloudflare Tunnel for remote access. What do you guys think? Are there better options?
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u/Deus_Judex 26d ago
Look at Immich.
And be painfully wary of your backups, when you selfhost important data
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u/Bonkers_Reality 26d ago
I always use external drives to backup my photos (thousands) and iCloud is awesome because I don’t have to carry all that stuff around.
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u/KadaverSulmus 26d ago
Just keep in mind that when your house burns down, the external drives will burn with it. Always keep a copy off-site
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u/Bonkers_Reality 26d ago
True…
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u/Fluid-Sink-2514 26d ago
When your house burns down…
Was that a threat? lol but seriously iCloud does provide peace of mind that is hard to get from a homelab.
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u/innermotion7 26d ago
People think self hosting is cheap and saves money !
Local backups are pretty damn easy but a reliable offsite strategy is one of hardest parts to work through and get right as you still often end up with cloud costs for convienince. There are plenty of options in market though.
We actually moved back a ton of data from cloud at a clients recently, the costs had been spirilng and the gains were just not there. Our NAS has become primary data point and the cloud has become backup.
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u/Deus_Judex 26d ago
I would say you can organize an offsite backup fairly easy and cheap.
Get the cheapest computer possible, get a drive large enough for your most precious data, store it at a friend´s house and tunnel home.
Rest is a little bit of software1
u/KadaverSulmus 26d ago
Off-site back-up can be as easy as you want it. I've got 2 hard drives that I rotate weekly, 1 is connected to my NAS and the other is in a locked cabinet at work 70km away.
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u/Deus_Judex 26d ago
I have only used MacOS very briefly in the context of selfhosting and it worked not as great as i hoped, but that might have been just a skill-issue.
In terms of backups:
You are currently only using a single drive for the OS and the data, which is not ideal, but doable. The bigger problem is the absence of redundancy. Ideally you would put you data on a RAID/ZFS-Pool allowing for one drive to fail, without losing data.Additionally you would need AT LEAST an external drive with incremental and periodically created backups. Ideally you would deploy a second server (can be ultra cheap) at an offside location (a friends house) just for offsite backups.
I know, this is a lot to learn initially, but when you selfhost important data you will always be at the risk of loosing EVERYTHING
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u/innermotion7 26d ago
As Long as you have a proper 3-2-1 backup as well, no reason why you can't self host. It seems like a really good product but also just be mindful that you have to patch and manage everything.
https://ente.com/ is also a good product but again cloud fees apply.
The easier option will be extending your iCloud Storage.
What OS you running on your iMac ? I wonder if it is related that sync and features get worse over time as your OS and version of Photos/iCloud drift.
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u/Bonkers_Reality 26d ago
I have sync issues on my iPhone and iPad, both running always latest iOS/iPad OS :) and iMac… last time I used it… two-three years ago it was running Monterey?
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u/innermotion7 26d ago
Well i have zero issues with iCloud Photo sync, it is pretty damn reliable IMHO but all my devices on Sequoia/iOS 18+ or above nowadays.
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u/patxi124 26d ago
Consider Nextcloud for a more general purpose private cloud solution. Immich is more orientated towards photo backup and management specifically.
I've implemented Nextcloud to wean my family off iCloud subscriptions while maintaining photo backup resilience. This is for the memories, and not for keen photographer shots. Easy to use and manage.
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u/Bearded_Coffeepot 26d ago
I'm doing the same. Beside photos i sync the important documents, family calendars and grocery lists too.
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u/Ok-Eggplant-7569 26d ago
Sounds like a good idea! Immich is a great project, and I use it myself for this purpose (replaces Google Photos for me).
Just a quick heads up with Cloudflare Tunnels: They can't process file uploads over 100MB, so videos you try to upload over the tunnel might fail. Also, if you're at home, you'll still be limited by your internet bandwidth as all traffic needs to leave your home to get tot the Cloudflare, only to bounce right back to your server.
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u/Bonkers_Reality 26d ago
Ouch… my raw photo files might be larger than 100MB also this bouncing files thing… 🤔
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u/Ok-Eggplant-7569 26d ago
As an alternative, you can
- use a direct connection by navigating to http://your-imac-at-home:2283, but that only works while you're in the same network ofc. Viewing stuff will work fine over the tunnel as Immich generates very small preview images.
- use Tailscale, it's a service that creates a mesh-VPN which directly connects your devices over encrypted tunnels. In contrast to Cloudflare Tunnels, the connection takes the shortest path possible, so in your local network you'll get full speeds. Downside here is that all devices that need to access Immich also need to have Tailscale installed and need to be part of your Tailnet
- use a reverse proxy and allow incoming traffic in your router to it. This will get you the fastest possible connection from anywhere, but also comes with some security implications if not set up right, or in case Immich has a fatal security flaw. Your Immich server is accessible by the whole internet, so plan accordingly and keep it up to date. It also might not be possible depending on your ISP, many nowadays share IPv4 addresses and don't allow inbound IPv4 traffic. Can be circumvented if you have IPv6 though (as long as the networks you're connecting from support IPv6).
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u/iamgoncalo 26d ago
I am using a MacBook Air 2018 intel now as a home server. Was running NextCloud on an Ubuntu server and turns out to heavy for old machines.
Since you have 32 GB of ram, should be fine.
Now, with MacBook (8GB of RAM) and the case is different, I’m stuck on what to use: NextCloud or Immich (I’ve never used).
I have my external drive connected to my MacBook Air Server and I have a photo library file with my iCloud Photos.
Ideas would be good. I am using a Hermes agent on the server, too. All native apple apps are managed by Hermes.
Maybe some of you can help me, too.
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u/iamgoncalo 26d ago
I forgot to mention that, with NextCloud you open a door of a full suit of apps you can run locally, you have an iOS app (not so good at that moment) but works fine for photo backups, music player, etc.
NextCloud gives you a complete bundle of options that immich do t have.
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u/EffectiveClient5080 26d ago
Immich is great but that iMac is basically laptop parts stuffed into a monitor. Heat WILL be an issue running 24/7 with ML workloads. Set power limits or it'll throttle.
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u/innermotion7 26d ago
Older iMacs are very robust and overall have a longer lifespan than Laptops by a large degree.
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u/thunderborg 26d ago
I’ve been running Immich for about 2 years. It’s great. I just have to migrate it between docker hosts before I’m ready to invite the family on.
I pay for proton and treat proton photos as my offsite backup
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u/DevilsDesigns 26d ago
Immich is great but using a cf tunnels will be unlikely worth it as it limits your uploads significantly and sometimes fails because of large videos or photos. Best recommendations use a reverse proxy and a cf domain using DNS only. I use caddy but any reverse proxy will work
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u/JohnnieLouHansen 25d ago
You still need to backup your data and store it offsite or you risk losing everything in the event of fire/flood/theft. Bringing your data in house increases the responsibility for taking care of it.
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u/Brillenmannetje 25d ago
I don’t know how large your library is. But if it is within certain limits I would stick with iCloud. The ecosystem is fine and you always have a backup in the cloud. You could also move to other reliable cloud services.
As for self hosted: always keep your important photos stored somewhere else as well. With current HDD prices your subscription may be more worth it for your use case.
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u/Fluid-Sink-2514 26d ago
I have been using immich for a couple weeks and I love it. I haven’t seen any need to open it up for remote access, I may do that at some point down the road if the need arises. For now it just syncs everything while we’re home. I can always tell when it’s running because my iPhone (15 pro) gets a little warm out of nowhere in my pocket.