A self-hosted photo & video library with end-to-end encryption, multi-server backup & restore, and web + Android access.

Simple Photos was born out of a desire for a secure, private, and user-friendly photo management solution that I could host myself. But found that other solutions lacked one critical thing, backup servers! Forcing users to choose between only having one backup target, or use multiple solutions; So I decided to build something from the ground up that met all my needs — and hopefully yours too!

• Self-hosted — runs on your own server, your data stays yours
• End-to-end encryption — always-on AES-256-GCM encryption with client-side key management, so only you can access your photos. Even if the server is compromised, your data remains secure.
• Multi-user — multiple accounts with per-user storage, shared albums, and admin controls
• Themes — full light/dark theme support
• Google Cast Support — cast photos and videos to compatible devices
• Face and object recognition — optional local AI module for face clustering and object tagging.
• Metadata editing — view and edit photo metadata (EXIF, IPTC, XMP) with support for custom metadata fields
• Geolocation support — optional reverse geocoding to country/city. With OPT-IN 3rd party precise location via OSM & Photon
• Geolocation Stripping — option to remove geolocation metadata during import for privacy
• GPU acceleration — optional NVIDIA GPU-accelerated media processing and AI inference for faster performance on supported hardware
• PWA - Progessive Web App to install on devices for easier access.
• Split-Screen - Capable of running dual apps

• Supported Photo, video, and audio formats — JPEG, PNG, GIF, WebP, AVIF, BMP, MP4, WebM, MP3, FLAC, OGG, WAV
• Media conversion — automatic FFmpeg-based conversion of non-native formats (I.E HEIC → JPEG, MKV → MP4, WMA → MP3) during import and scan
• Photo/Video/Audio editing — crop, rotate, adjust brightness, and trim videos/audio using non-destructive edits stored as metadata or rendered into a saved copy.
• Android Motion Photos support — view and manage Motion Photos, with future support for apple's Live Photos planned
• Panoramic photos — 360° panoramic photo viewer
• HDR support — view and manage HDR photos and videos
• Burst photo support — view and manage burst photo sequences as grouped albums
• Slideshows! WOW!* - view photos as slideshows with optional shuffle

• Albums — organize photos into albums with optional sharing between users
• Secure Galleries — password-protected encrypted galleries for sensitive content, with support for multiple albums
• Smart albums — dynamic albums based on people, places, and things (optional modules required)
• Trash — 30-day soft-delete with restore
• Tags & search — tag photos and search across your library
• Favorites — mark and filter favorite photos
• Import — drag-and-drop upload with Google Photos (Google Takeout) Support
• Library export — download your entire library as a ZIP archive

• Backup sync — automatic server-to-server backup replication with support for multiple backup targets, including remote servers
• Backup recovery — restore a primary server from any backup server with full data integrity (photos, albums, secure galleries, trash, metadata, accounts, etc.)
• Offsite Backup Support - Ability to host from a VPS or other similar services

• 2FA — TOTP two-factor authentication with backup codes
• Rate limiting — brute-force protection on authentication endpoints
• Audit logging — server-side audit trail
• TLS/SSL — native HTTPS support with configurable certificates, supporting multiple methods

• Android app — view and manage your library
• Automatic backup — background photo backup from your device
• Server discovery — automatic network scanning to find your server during setup

Download the latest installer from the Releases page

The install scripts handle everything — building the server, web frontend, and (optionally) the Android APK. They support both Docker and bare-metal (native) installations.

--mode <native|docker>  Installation mode
--name <string>         Instance name (for Docker containers)
--no-build-android      Skip Android APK build prompt
--no-start              Don't start the server after install
--yes                   Auto-accept all prompts
--help                  Show this help

Examples:(Run as Root/Admin)

# Native install
./install.sh --mode native 

# Docker install
./install.sh --mode docker

# Native uninstall
./install.sh --uninstall native

# Docker uninstall
./install.sh --uninstall docker

# Native install
.\install.ps1 -Mode native 

# Docker install
.\install.ps1 -Mode docker

# Native uninstall
.\install.ps1 -Uninstall native

# Docker uninstall
.\install.ps1 -Uninstall docker

• Rust (for native builds)
• Node.js (for building the web frontend)
• Docker (for Docker-mode installs)
• FFmpeg (required for media conversion, video thumbnails, and rendering)
• Android SDK (optional, for building the Android APK)

All prerequisites are handled automatically by the install scripts, minus docker installation on Windows (which requires manual setup).

See API_REFERENCE.md for the full REST API documentation.

• Icons — Custom icon set by Angus_87 on Flaticon
• Developed by WulfNet Designs

GitHub Repository

Full developer documentation lives in the project Wiki:

• API Reference
• Build & Packaging
• Testing

This repo uses two long-lived branches:

• main — lean release branch. Only what's needed to build & ship.
• dev — full development branch with tests, agent customisation, and scratch artefacts. Open all pull requests against dev. Pushing a version tag (vX.Y.Z) runs the full release pipeline, and on success mirrors dev → main after stripping development-only paths (see .github/sync-main-exclude.txt on dev).

This project is licensed under the MIT License.

© 2026 WulfNet Designs — github.com/Wulfic/simple-photos

Attribution is required when redistributing or using this software. Please retain the original copyright notice and link to the source repository.