Ente Photos

If you are looking for an application help back up your precious memories that feels like Google photos but respects your data and privacy, look no further! Even though it can be slightly more expensive than mainstream photo storage services, it is well worth it to know that the photos of my loved ones are protected with the encryption and respect they deserve. I could not be happier with this service! You do not sacrifice anything that you would normally have with larger photo storage platforms. They are also adding features all the time. I love the widgets I put on my iPhone that allow me to see memories of photos taken in the past, and the map and face recognition feature allow me to reminisce about specific people and places whenever I like. Additionally, customer service is excellent! I had one technical issue come up, and they got back to me immediately and fixed my problem very promptly. Please do yourself a favor and try Ente!

Overall this app works pretty good, and I like the security and privacy features built in for those extra privacy-focused. I have not gotten a chance to test out the de-duplicate options yet but one thing I frequently do is visually skim through my library when the image thumbnails are smaller. When you do your initial sync (I have about 40,000 items, and about 1,000 are videos, and the iPad Pro app freezes and crashes frequently when getting about 3/4 through the initial sync. The green spinning circle goes SO SLOW for about 1-2 minutes before the app crashes, and only 4-8 videos got uploaded. I had to do that a LOT and hope it ran overnight when it was time to go to bed. FEATURE REQUEST -it would be REALLY nice if I can zoom out at several levels like Apple Photos does, and like how you can change thumbnail sizes for files in file pickers. Why can I not pinch to zoom on any grid of images??? Let us zoom out real far like Apple to see a large number of files. [EDIT:bI’d like to have more than 6 options in a single row.] Sometimes it’s useful to be able to glance at big groups of images quickly as you scroll by such as a vacation or convention to look for something specific that is not a face, but at least on iPad Pro, I can’t seem to find an option to zoom out. Even Apple Photos lets you zoom out a few different levels. I’m sure it’s easy to implement. Please take my consideration into this for a higher rating. Thanks!

This is a great alternative to Big Tech which is slowly consolidating control over all digital services. I was a long time user of Google Photos and was pulled in originally by their false promise of free, unlimited storage. Now Google Photos caps it at 15GB and constantly reminds you to upgrade and pay them while also adding more and more advertising for other services. Google Photos and iCloud also make it much harder than it needs to be to export your data or back it up to other locations such as an external hard drive. This app on the other hand is transparent with their pricing from the start and make it easy to export your data for back up elsewhere. I also like the grass roots nature of this app. Too many apps and companies use VC funding to offer too good to be true services only to later do a rug pull once they corner the market and then start to raise prices, lower the quality, and treat their employees poorly. If you want a photo app that offers a great service and you can feel good about as well, get Ente!