Folders and drives

Besides the phones' backups, a library can hold photos that already live on the server's own disks: a folder, or a whole external drive. Each is a source, given by an administrator to one account.

Filamama reads a source in place. It never copies, moves or writes anything in it, not even a marker file. Only that account sees its photos; the administrator sees each source's folder, owner, state and count, never its photos.

Add one

Administrators: Settings › Folders & drives. Give the folder's path on the server (/Volumes/LaCie/Photos on a Mac, /media/me/LaCie/Photos on Linux) and the account it is for.

Refused, with the reason on the page: a network share, a folder holding the server's own data (or inside it), or a folder holding or inside another source.

Changes on the disk

A source is looked through when the server starts, every six hours, when its drive is plugged back in, and when an administrator clicks Rescan. There is no file watching: a change shows at the next look.

• A file renamed or moved keeps its favourite.
• A file deleted is forgotten, except when a look finds many gone at once (more than a fifth of the source and over a hundred files, or an empty folder). Then nothing is forgotten, and Settings asks the administrator to forget them or keep waiting.

An unplugged drive

Its source shows as not connected. Its photos stay, with the previews already made; originals, downloads and new previews wait for the drive. A drive is recognised by its volume's id, wherever it is mounted next.

The trash, and removing a source

Emptying the trash forgets a drive's photo; the file stays on the drive. Removing a source forgets its photos, with their favourites, titles and folders, and leaves every file where it is.

Permissions

• macOS: grant Full Disk Access once to the node the service runs (the installer prints its path), in System Settings › Privacy & Security, then restart the service. See A drive the server can't read.
• Linux: the service's user must be able to read the folder. For a drive that serves the house, mount it in /etc/fstab by its UUID=.

Not yet

Network shares (SMB, NFS) as sources, file watching, and a drive shared by the whole household, which waits for sharing. On a drive, a Live Photo's picture and video, or a RAW and its JPEG, are each their own photo.