Ente Photos is an excellent open-source photo management tool. With privacy and security being one of the main focuses, it features everything you want from other photo management tools like Google Photos or iCloud, without compromising your data. Available on most devices and platforms, there are loads of reasons why I love Ente Photos, and you’ll love it too.
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9 Affordable for all
Free and cheap options
Although most open-source software is entirely free to access, Ente Photos offers a free plan among its affordable paid plans. By charging for plans, Ente Photos doesn’t suffer from the [ugly interfaces found in many open-source tools] and you get a much better product as a result.
The Free plan includes 5GB of photo storage at no cost. With five storage plans for Ente Photos, the prices go up to $20 per month for an annual Pro+ plan offering 2000GB. You can also choose between monthly plans or an annual plan, paid monthly.
8 Subscription sharing
Share the cost and space
Not only are the subscription prices low, but you can also share your subscriptions with family and friends at no extra cost.
The Family Plan is available to paid users. You can add up to five other people to your paid plan, letting them upload and store photos privately and sharing the storage amount at no additional cost.
The storage amount is shared among the plan members, regardless of whether they allow others to view their photos. If the worst happens, other family plan members can also recover your account in your absence.
7 End-to-end encryption
Your data is safe
End-to-end encryption is one of Ente Photos’ prominent features. Privacy and security are important when storing intimate family photos. Family photo sharing is at the heart of what Ente Photos is about.
Ente Photos or the Ente incorporation have zero access to your data. Only you can view your photos, and you have the choice of who, how, and where you share your photos. Everything you decide to keep in Ente Photos stays there.
Ente Photos source code has been audited by reputed cryptographers, too. Your photos, data, and privacy are perfectly safe.
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6 Reliable storage
You’ll never lose access
Ente Photos has three major backups in European data centers. The revenue made from subscription costs goes towards funding cloud storage systems, creating three copies of all your data, just in case the end of the world happens. For even more safety, one of these cloud storage systems is built into an underground fallout shelter in Paris.
With three copies of your photos, Ente Photos mitigates any corruption or loss of connection, allowing you to always have access to your images.
5 Self-hosting options
Or direct hosting
Open-source products often give the option to self-host, such as self-hosting PenPot for UX/UI design. But if you’re not developer-minded, you might not want or know how to self-host Ente Photos — and that’s okay. It also has host options directly from Ente itself.
Check out the Ente Photos GitHub page orits command line to begin self-hosting.
It’s great to have the option for self-hosting to give you even more peace of mind. But Ente Photos can easily — safely and securely — be hosted directly. It offers multiple apps and software to use, like any traditional tools. Coding knowledge isn’t required to use Ente Photos, but if you have the knowledge, the option is there.
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4 Machine learning search function
Search with categories
With on-device AI tools, Ente Photos recognizes faces, allowing for facial recognition search and organization, and it recognizes key elements in photos. This allows for a much easier search based on terms or pictures, using natural language to easily find the photos you’re thinking of. It also works fast as there’s no waiting for network requests due to the on-device system.
Ente Photos receives zero knowledge of your photos or search queries as it uses local machine learning from your device rather than externally hosted. All data from your photos is stored and synced to your devices with Ente Photos’ end-to-end encryption. There are very few photo storage and management tools that can or do not have the ability or option for locally managed machine learning models.
3 Legacy options
Don’t let your photos die with you
In the digital age, it’s common to upload photos to digital platforms that are only accessible by us. This means that if and when someone dies, all access to the memories found in their photos is lost with them.
The Legacy option allows generational nostalgia to continue upon your departure. Choose a trusted person, and then once you pass, they can make a request to access your account. If, after a 30-day or self-stipulated window, their request receives no block from you, the account holder (due to your death), they will gain access to recover your account.
This is all end-to-end encrypted, and since you choose your trusted contact, privacy remains as stringent even after you’ve passed.
2 Gallery lock
Choose who sees what when you share
Your Ente Photos gallery itself is private and for your eyes only, but what happens if you want to share your photos from your handheld device? You can’t usually do anything to stop Grandma automatically swiping right when you’re trying to show her just one photo.
With the Guest View gallery lock, you can ensure that when you show someone just one photo or a small set of photos, they can't find access to more. This might seem like overkill, but there are plenty of reasons you want to ensure total control when showing photos to others.
Before passing your phone or device over, simply switch on Guest View. This means whoever you share the device with can’t access more than the photo or photos you intend to show at that time. You must authorize yourself with your password before accessing menu items or returning to your gallery.
1 Multi-platform access
Phone, desktop, browser, or tablet
You can access your Ente Photos account from all your favorite devices and platforms. Open-source documents are available to edit and manipulate, and there are well-rounded apps and software available from pretty much every operating system you’ll access free of charge.
Ente Photos is available from the Google Play Store and Apple Store for iPhones and iPads. It’s also available through F-Droid for other mobile devices. If you want to run from a desktop, you can download Ente Photos and access it from the web. Your photos sync across any devices for easy access and sharing.
Ente Photos
Ente Photos is the way forward
Using open-source software is the future with creative tech, and Ente Photos is following suit. The developers of Ente Photos care about the utmost privacy and security, and that’s evident with how the tool is made, run, and continuously developed. With multiple ways to use or access Ente Photos, and forward-thinking features like Legacy, Guest View, or machine learning search, it adds the best tools to an already-awesome app for photo management.