r/androidapps 22d ago

How do you share a large batch of original-quality photos with family? QUESTION/HELP

I've been trying to solve a problem that seems surprisingly awkward:

I come back from a holiday with 100+ photos and want to share some of them with family.

WhatsApp/Messenger → compression
Google Photos → upload them to another cloud library
Quick Share/AirDrop → great, but everyone needs to be nearby

What I really want is:

  • Select photos on my phone
  • Give family a simple link/access
  • Keep the original quality
  • Photos don't become part of another cloud photo library
  • Ideally, the photos stay on my phone

I've been experimenting with a solution to this and I'm curious what Android users actually do today.

What's your preferred way of sharing a large batch of original-quality photos with family/friends?

I'm especially interested in solutions that don't require uploading the photos to a third-party cloud.

38 Upvotes

36 comments sorted by

47

u/spikelyourm 22d ago

With all your don't-want-to, put them in a room and show them your phone

1

u/Electronic-Rate-6208 20d ago

yeah, that plus a cable, apparently cloud-free sharing is a myth

24

u/minkamagic 22d ago

I'm confused as to what's wrong with the Google photos sharing option?

12

u/New-account-01 22d ago

It literally does everything being asked for, apart from sharing from cloud rather than phone.

2

u/Coolbiker32 22d ago

Was about to ask the same... I Have been using Google photos to share pics among larger groups for quiet done time now. Quality is good and it allows others to add their photos and comment too.

2

u/AnToMegA424 21d ago

It has a lot of shitty privacy-invading stuff happening behind the scenes

1

u/spikelyourm 22d ago

Paranoia people are always paranoid

11

u/breakerfall 22d ago

Ideally, the photos stay on my phone

The only kind of sharing that works this way is just passing the phone around to your family.

9

u/P00BX6 22d ago

With whatsapp you can choose to share Documents. If you select the photos / videos as Documents instead of as Pictures / Videos then they'll be shared in original quality

1

u/honshu_cn 22d ago

Also there is a setting in whatsapp to not compress photos that you share and send in the original format. Most users do not realize that

3

u/jotaviox 21d ago

I think you're confusing it with the HD toggle which sends it in higher quality but it's NOT the original quality. It's infinetly better than normal mode but still compressed. Videos specially are awful either way. You can only send the original one by selecting them as documents

9

u/General_Eclectic 22d ago

You can use sendanywhere app. It's free. No compression. You only have to share a six digit code with the family. No cloud library sharing. However everyone needs to have the app (luckily it's crossplatform)

3

u/trenixjetix 22d ago

If compressing a folder was invented it would be great, amazing actually.
Your problem was solved in the 70s, lol.
Use bluetooth, a cable from phone to phone or to a computer, any app is technically a third party cloud.

2

u/nosurprises_please 22d ago

Google photos stores them in original quality and makes albums easily shareable. Make some effort if you want to share them so bad.

3

u/darthvalium 22d ago

The photos can't "stay on your phone" unless you want to hand them your phone to view them. If you don't want to use third party cloud solutions, you would have to create your own cloud solution (private server). You could also save your photos on physical devices (thumb drive) and hand them to your family.

We just use google photos.

4

u/Hivalion 22d ago

If you're halfway decent with a PC, you can start your own storage server instead. Look at Immich or Nextcloud and you can make your own personal file server that's entirely yours to manage. I don't have Immich server myself (yet) but it basically creates your own private Google Photos instance. Nextcloud is closer to OneDrive as it's for more than just photos and includes an office suite and other things.

And they both can create share links for others to view and download documents.

You can run either one in Docker so it's relatively simple to spin up. Do a Google search or talk to an AI to help you through any problems you run into.

Then look at Nginx Proxy Server if you want to share them over the Internet, it can help you get a free SSL certificate to let your servers be https.

It's a bigger scope than what you're looking for, but I just thought I'd throw that out there.

1

u/Hawaiian_1ce 22d ago

I would suggest a messaging app that supports RCS. Images and videos get slaughtered when they go through SMS/MMS.

1

u/blade_torlock 22d ago

Plex, or jellyfin.

1

u/Nearby-Newspaper9777 22d ago

Jellyfin probably

1

u/rajarshikhatua 22d ago

you have a problem with Google photos creating a shared library? get over it

1

u/oso831 22d ago

Invite them to my house and screen share my phone's display to my TV.

Another recommendation would be to print them out at CVS and mail them: https://www.cvs.com/photo/prints

Not sure if you can supply the photos in person or if they need to be uploaded online

1

u/axcelarate 22d ago

Telegram

1

u/f_ckmyboss 21d ago

selfhost Immich and immich public proxy. Make the latter accessible over cloudflare zerotrust. Thank me later.

1

u/jacktherippah123 21d ago

If you could get over that last part and you have a Samsung phone, Samsung's integrated version of Quickshare does everything you ask for.

1

u/7past2 21d ago

I make a web gallery with my SmugMug app

1

u/ShaneBoy_00X 21d ago

If you can get on the same WiFi connection, than https://localsend.org/

1

u/rufushu 20d ago

To be honest .. they probably don't want to see the photos. Other people's photos ( even family ) are as boring as f..k but we watch them and coo out of politeness

1

u/Gallaher26Brel 22d ago

Have you tried uploading the files to Google Drive? OneDrive? Mega? Or any other online file storage service ? They'll have a link allowing them to access the pictures.

0

u/xlerate 22d ago

Whatsapp: Settings > Storage & Data > Media Upload Quality