The Photos app in Nextcloud is your own photo gallery — an Apple Photos / Google Photos replacement, just on your own cloud. With the mobile apps and auto-upload, your entire photo collection lands there, neatly sorted by date.
What the Photos app does
- Shows all images and videos from your cloud in a gallery view
- Sorts by date (capture date from EXIF, upload date as fallback)
- Automatically recognizes:
- People (face recognition with the Recognize app)
- Places (based on GPS EXIF data)
- Categories (e.g. “beach”, “mountains”, “food” — with the Recognize app)
- Supports manual albums and shared albums
Activating it
Active by default on xaweho setups. If not: install Administration settings → Apps → Photos.
First impressions after activation
Click the Photos icon in the top navigation → the gallery opens with all images from your cloud, sorted chronologically.
With a large collection (10,000+ photos), the first load takes a few seconds — after that it’s cached and fast.
Which source folders
By default, Photos scans all folders of your cloud for images. You can restrict this in Photos settings → Source folders.
Useful if, say, you only want /Photos and /Familie/Urlaubsbilder as sources, but not the /Arbeit/Screenshots directory.
Auto-upload from the mobile apps
The classic workflow: the mobile app automatically uploads photos to /Photos/<Year>/<Month> (default). The Photos app picks them up automatically.
More in Mobile apps.
Albums
Your own albums
In Photos: Albums → New album. Select photos by clicking.
A photo can be in multiple albums — an album is a reference, not a copy. Storage isn’t consumed twice.
Shared albums
Share an album with other Nextcloud users → they can access it and possibly add their own photos.
Use case: a shared family album, club-festival pictures, wedding photos.
Public album
Share an album via public link — external people see the photos without an account. Can be combined with password protection and an expiration date (see Sharing links with protection).
People recognition
With the Recognize app (install via Apps → Recognize), Nextcloud does:
- Face recognition
- Auto-grouping of the same people
- Manual naming
The first indexing can take hours on large collections — it runs in the background via cron.
Important: people recognition runs locally on your server. No third-party cloud, no photo uploads to Google / Apple. A privacy plus.
Place recognition
If your photos have GPS tags in their EXIF data, Nextcloud groups them by location. Map under Photos → Places.
iPhone photos usually carry GPS tags. Photos uploaded manually from a computer often don’t.
Search
In Photos: the search bar. You can search by:
- People’s names (if named)
- Places (if GPS)
- Categories (“beach”, “mountains”, “dog”, etc. — with Recognize)
- File names
Very handy in large collections.
Format support
Photos displays:
- Photos: JPEG, PNG, HEIC (with plugin), AVIF
- RAW: ARW, CR2, NEF, DNG, CR3 — as a preview, not in original quality
- Videos: MP4, MOV, AVI, MKV (browser-dependent)
HEIC support (iPhone photos) needs a server plugin, which we install as standard on xaweho setups.
Preview sizes
The server generates thumbnails in multiple resolutions for fast display. Storage for that: figure roughly 5–10% of your photo volume for thumbnails (server-side, separate from your quota).
Performance with large collections
From our experience:
- Up to 10,000 photos: runs almost lag-free
- 10,000–50,000 photos: first gallery load 3–5 seconds, scrolling smooth after that
- 50,000–100,000 photos: noticeable latency, but usable
-
100,000: gets tight with many parallel users
With large collections and Recognize active: the first indexing can take days.
If performance turns bad: open a ticket — we can adjust cron settings or tune the storage backend.
Photos in the mobile app
The Nextcloud mobile app has its own Photos view. Practically like iOS Photos / Google Photos:
- Gallery by date
- Albums
- Search
Auto-uploads from your smartphone land in the Photos app automatically.
What the Photos app can’t do (well)
- Image editing in the browser (crop, filters, etc.): minimal, clearly weaker than Apple/Google
- Live Photos (iOS): stored as separate JPEG + video, no combined playback
- Burst photos: stored individually, no stack view
- Memories / auto-highlights like Google’s: rudimentary
From our experience: great for plain photo archiving; for serious photo editing, use local apps (Lightroom, Darktable).
The privacy advantage
Compared to Apple Photos / Google Photos:
- Photos live on your server
- People recognition runs locally, no biometric data at third-party clouds
- No ads, no data mining
- You keep the EXIF data under your control
GDPR-compliant out of the box if you use the cloud privately or for a club.
Frequently asked questions
How long does the initial photo indexing take? With 10,000 photos: ~30 minutes. With 100,000: several hours to days. With Recognize active: extra effort for the AI models.
What happens if I delete a photo in the Files app — does it disappear from Photos too? Yes. Photos only shows what’s in the Files source folders. Delete in Files → gone from Photos.
Are photos stored twice (because of auto-upload + albums)? No. Albums are just references. Auto-upload stores once — if you have the photo in 5 albums, it’s still stored only once.
HEIC photos aren’t displayed — what now? At xaweho, HEIC support is installed as standard. If not: open a ticket, we’ll activate the plugin.
At what collection size is the Recognize app worth it? Makes sense from ~1,000 photos. Below that: manual albums are enough.
Privacy with Recognize — what happens to people data? Everything stays local on your server. No external API. The people model is instance-specific — if you migrate servers, it has to be retrained.
Can Photos be backed up? Yes, the server backup covers all files including photos. For very large collections: a separate photo backup on an external solution is recommended.
Sharing the Photos app with kids — content filters? Not built in. There’s no direct photo content filtering. If you need that: set up separate accounts with controlled sharing.
Migrating from Synology PhotoStation or Apple iCloud to Nextcloud? Works. Export the photos (e.g. via original-quality download at Apple), drop them into the Nextcloud auto-upload folder, done. People/album structures may have to be recreated.
What’s next
First login as a Nextcloud admin
What to do after your Nextcloud is provisioned — login, profile, the important first settings, what we handle and what you handle.
Admin GUI overview — what you'll find where
Nextcloud's administration settings are big. Here's a tour of the sections that matter and what they do.
Creating users and groups
Create users for family, club or team, organize groups, set quotas, control login behavior.
Sharing — files with others, internally and externally
Sharing files in Nextcloud — within your cloud with other users, with groups, or externally via sharing link.