Hey! I set you up with a synology account which you are welcomed to use. It is kinda like google cloud or microsoft one drive, but all of the information is stored at my house rather than in the cloud. The apps are not quite as good, but all of your data is private. The part I love about it is that I can access everything from my phone or laptop or work computer, it is very handy.

You have an email with three pieces of information: username, password, quickconnect id. The quickconnect id is how the apps know to use my computer. It is chammondnhs

Web

• Go to ‘quickconnect.to’
  • Put in the username and password.
• Click on photos desktop icon
  • This allows you to see all of your photos
• Click on drive desktop icon
  • This allows you to see all of your files and photos
  • This also allows it to act as a drive where you can share with other people if you want
• Click on file station
  • This is a standard explorer where you can see all of your files

Laptop (Windows)

• Go to the download center: https://www.synology.com/en-au/support/download/DDSM?version=6.2#utilities
  • Click synology drive download
  • Follow the instructions inputting the quickconnectid, username, password
• After installation, click on the app and go to settings
  • Under sync tasks you will see one named my drive or something similar
  • Click on it
  • Click on sync rules. Click photos which will allow you to see the photos on your laptop.
  • You can create folders in the photos folder which act as albums

Mobile phone (IOS)

• Install drive from apple: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/synology-drive/id1267275421
• Install photos from apple:https://apps.apple.com/us/app/synology-photos/id1484764501
  • You can optionally use this to back up your photos from your phone

Using

• I moved all of my files over the the drive, now I can access my files from anywhere
• I moved all of my photos over to the drive/photos folder. Photos does auto facial recognition (on my server so it takes awhile). Now I can see my photos from anywhere.
• I also use the synology notes app on my phone, it is really useful for remembering shopping lists
• This replaced google drive, onedrive, notes, and photos.
• Its also free! Rather than pay 10-100/yr for these things, you can have infinite storage. If you need more space just let me know.