Automate Android photo uploads to home network?

[johnny77777]

I'm trying to find a way to automate our photo uploads from mine and my spouse's smartphones to my home network without having to do all the work of transferring photos manually with our USB / USB-C cables.

I also want them to be uploaded using the same folder structure that I have my photos library set up as in the format of yyyy-mm-dd. Is there a way to do this with Android smartphones?

Back with Windows Phone 8 and with Zune, I was able to set it up that when myself or my wife arrived home with our smartphones that as soon as they connected to our home wifi network, they would automatically upload the photos to a directory on my home network in the folder format I told it to.

I also have a Synology NAS so maybe there's an app or utility in there that can help?

 

[Rukbat]

Not that I've seen (feel free to spend a week searching Play). I've written programs to do that, but not for Android. (Windows gives you an API that makes it easy - it's kind of "notify me if anything in this folder changes". I don't think Android has anything that can do that - because it's a phone, not an accounts receivable package that will bankrupt your business if you don't have an off-site backup and an earthquake destroys your building and all the computers in it.

It's certainly possible to develop, but if it's developed to allow you to pick the wifi connection it fires from, it's going to be pretty large, and if it has to run all the time, so that when something in that folder changes it can set a flag, your battery won't last long. It's a function that should be baked into the kernel, and an app can't do that, you'd need a custom kernel and you'd need to install it.

 

[johnny77777]

Appreciate the background there. The thing is Windows Phone was doing this years ago and it was a simple setting from Zune on your desktop that you'd set up one time. I'm not sure I agree with the battery life concern. Devices are constantly auto-backing-up settings and photos and videos all the time.

It wasn't anything that ran all the time either. It was a one-time run anytime the devices connected to wifi network. The logic went something like


IF phone connects to wi-fi network THEN check if new pictures.
IF new pictures on device THEN upload them to the defined network directory in said folder structure

It's 2018 and no solution for such a simple concept that even Windows Phone was doing over 6 years ago. Total bummer.