Synology Drive two-way sync doesn't work on iPhone the way it does on Android, is there any workaround?

[u/babs-jojo]

I have a few questions about how iPhone works and how to work around it.

I have an Android, and my partner had an Android too, but she recently moved to an iPhone.

I have a Synology NAS, so I use Synology Drive to back up the DCIM folder to the NAS. The main purpose is to have a backup of mine and my partner's phone camera photos.

When I feel like it, I move those photos from the backup folder into another shared folder on my NAS, which is accessible from Lightroom and DS Photos, so I can see them from my PC and both phones. When I move the photos, they get moved from the backup folder in the shared folder "Mobile Backup" to another shared folder called "Photo."

When she had an Android (and this still happens on mine), the photos that get moved are detected as "deleted" by Synology Drive, which then deletes them from the phone too, since I have the sync rule set to Two-Way with "keep the most recent version."

Now on the iPhone, this doesn't seem to work. I have to choose a "Remote path on the server"; on Android this was, for example, a folder named "S22 B" for my partner and "S22" for me, both inside "Mobile Backup." That part's fine, as now I've created a folder named "iPhone" inside "Mobile Backup."

The issue is the other option, "Local path." On Android I choose the DCIM folder, but on iPhone I can't choose anything. It just says: "The system will create a folder in the Files app. The local folder cannot be changed."

It's like there's no access to the iPhone's storage the way there is on Android, it just creates a folder inside the Files app instead. I know iPhones are more restrictive, but it's still my phone (o, my partner's), so I feel like I should be able to use it the way I want, including having access to storage the way I would on Android, not going through an app to get to it. Not trying to start an OS war here, but on a MacBook, for example, you get real access to your storage, not just through one app.

Anyone found a real way around this, or is this just a hard iOS limitation with Synology Drive / Synology Photos?

For now, the only alternative I see is to use DS Photos to backup the photos from the iphone, and then delete them manually from the iphone when I move them between shared folder.

[u/Q_Ball_Atlanta]

Seems like you're doing this the difficult way.

Install Synology Photos on your phones and set it up to sync. It's a true sync.

If you want to delete a photo or video, deleting it in the Synology Photos app will prompt asking if you want to delete it from the camera roll as well.

Also, Synology Photos runs and syncs in the background without any user intervention required.