S3Drive - general

xv joined the server. 9/5/2024 10:14 AM

timecaster joined the server. 9/5/2024 3:00 PM

Hello. I wanted to reach out cause I was thinking about purchasing S3Drive to use with rclone. I have been doing this from the CLI, but a GUI app would be nice, especially for configuring bi-directional syncing for select folders and to more easily mount and manage an rclone encrypted folder. Since S3Drive isn't open source, I was trying to determine how much development time was being spent on the product from the changelog & feature requests. I do see new updates getting released, with even a new release today, but the feature requests are hard to tell what is actively being worked on.. with many in progress showing being marked as in progress over a year ago, then planned, and now in progress again. However... I was quite impressed with @Tom's discussion about ways to improve encryption and so I'm also happy to help support a developer working on contributing back improvements to rclone: https://github.com/rclone/rclone/issues/7192 I learned about this project from Flathub, but noticed there wasn't a manifest for WinGet or Brew. I wanted to inquire ahead of time before buying a lifetime subscription, if the developer(s) are in a spot to continue working on the project for an extended period of time. Also, if there is anything stopping the app from being distributed on WinGet or Brew, which might gain more user adoption? I haven't even downloaded the app yet to check for myself, but what programming language is it built around?

Ken joined the server. 9/7/2024 2:23 AM

Tom

It's not at the moment. Ciphers are similar, but not the same. We/Rclone uses: XSalsa20-Poly1305, Kopia uses: CHACHA20-POLY1305-HMAC-SHA256. It also uses different storage layout. https://kopia.io/docs/advanced/architecture/#content-addressable-block-storage-cabs and https://kopia.io/docs/advanced/architecture/#content-addressable-object-storage-caos that we would have to parse/decrypt and understand in order to produce file list viewable to the user. Definitely possible, but given our workload and other features we would spread ourselves too thin if we've started work on that

Added feature item though: https://s3drive.canny.io/feature-requests/p/add-suport-for-reading-kopia-backups

Thanks for the detailed response, Tom. It's best that I stick with rclone then. I just like that Kopia has a GUI

CaptainVolcom joined the server. 9/7/2024 1:51 PM

indifferent1 joined the server. 9/7/2024 4:56 PM

Hi, I want to cancel my subscription but I have not found a way to do it. Advice?

indifferent1

Hi, I want to cancel my subscription but I have not found a way to do it. Advice?

Hello, on which platform have you subscribed please? It will depend on the billing system you went through

Xenthys

Hello, on which platform have you subscribed please? It will depend on the billing system you went through

I signed up thru the website.

indifferent1

I signed up thru the website.

You should be able to access your account at https://s3drive.app/account then click on the View button to access your billing details on Stripe, where you can manage your subscription

Xenthys

You should be able to access your account at https://s3drive.app/account then click on the View button to access your billing details on Stripe, where you can manage your subscription

It’s not offering that option. It continues to try to hit my card even though it keeps being unsuccessful. (edited)

The account you are connected to isn't subscribed, not through Stripe at least, if you paid through Stripe please see with @Tom who will certainly ask for your account email address to check it out

I’m 90% certain I signed up thru the website and used stripe. This is the only detail I get from Apple wallet, as I’m using my Apple Cash balance.

Xenthys

The account you are connected to isn't subscribed, not through Stripe at least, if you paid through Stripe please see with @Tom who will certainly ask for your account email address to check it out

I just looked up on the stripe website, from the details they requested, and it does not appear to be billed thru them. EDIT: I just found the email, it is definately thru stripe. But it will only allow me to update the card information, not cancel. (edited)

Hmm, yeah you'll need Tom to look into it then, I'm only a volunteer so I don't have access to any system

Ok thank you, I sent a dm @Tom

10:21 PM

-

FinDub joined the server. 9/8/2024 9:10 AM

indifferent1

Ok thank you, I sent a dm @Tom

Hi, I would appreciate if you could provide me your e-mail address in the DM, so I can check if for you, make sure your subscription is cancelled and remove any outstanding charges. It's possible that you've cancelled the subscription after failed payment, in which case Stripe would repeat the charge until payment is settled. No worries though I will make sure that this doesn't bother you anymore. UPDATE: I've sent you DM, it's sorted now. Thanks for giving us a chance! (edited)

Gin joined the server. 9/9/2024 2:02 AM

howl joined the server. 9/9/2024 7:00 AM

timecaster

Hello. I wanted to reach out cause I was thinking about purchasing S3Drive to use with rclone. I have been doing this from the CLI, but a GUI app would be nice, especially for configuring bi-directional syncing for select folders and to more easily mount and manage an rclone encrypted folder. Since S3Drive isn't open source, I was trying to determine how much development time was being spent on the product from the changelog & feature requests. I do see new updates getting released, with even a new release today, but the feature requests are hard to tell what is actively being worked on.. with many in progress showing being marked as in progress over a year ago, then planned, and now in progress again. However... I was quite impressed with @Tom's discussion about ways to improve encryption and so I'm also happy to help support a developer working on contributing back improvements to rclone: https://github.com/rclone/rclone/issues/7192 I learned about this project from Flathub, but noticed there wasn't a manifest for WinGet or Brew. I wanted to inquire ahead of time before buying a lifetime subscription, if the developer(s) are in a spot to continue working on the project for an extended period of time. Also, if there is anything stopping the app from being distributed on WinGet or Brew, which might gain more user adoption? I haven't even downloaded the app yet to check for myself, but what programming language is it built around?

I do see new updates getting released, with even a new release today, but the feature requests are hard to tell what is actively being worked on..

Thanks for your message. As you can imagine scope of this project isn't small given the multiple platforms, mobile, E2E encryption model... and multiple clould providers support. The backlog of feature requests grows faster than our ability to deliver all of them, so we need to pick them smartly and if something proves to be challenging we stash it for later (that's why you might see Planned -> In progress -> then Planned again). Having said that, we're recently consumed by a pretty big item (Managed storage plans) which is side-quest that will allow us to get the additional revenue stream and hopefully increase our head count. Since we've promised to community (and ourselves !) to deliver it by the end of Q4 2024, for the past few months our 60% focus is solely on that. That doesn't mean that other features aren't implemented (https://s3drive.app/changelog), app is being actively developed, but it receives smaller upgrades, stability improvements, bugfixes (and lots of refactor is being worked which is paying back the debt we've took over past 2 years) as it benefits both external S3/Rclone endpoints, as well as our managed plans (which are technically ran using the S3 protocol). We could've made better job at updating status updates to give better indication what's worked on, but this proves to be challenging even for way bigger teams, especially when on top of S3Drive we need to keep doing R&D on external dependencies (we're proud that we can contribute back to some open-source projects https://github.com/rclone/rclone/issues/7192)

timecaster

Hello. I wanted to reach out cause I was thinking about purchasing S3Drive to use with rclone. I have been doing this from the CLI, but a GUI app would be nice, especially for configuring bi-directional syncing for select folders and to more easily mount and manage an rclone encrypted folder. Since S3Drive isn't open source, I was trying to determine how much development time was being spent on the product from the changelog & feature requests. I do see new updates getting released, with even a new release today, but the feature requests are hard to tell what is actively being worked on.. with many in progress showing being marked as in progress over a year ago, then planned, and now in progress again. However... I was quite impressed with @Tom's discussion about ways to improve encryption and so I'm also happy to help support a developer working on contributing back improvements to rclone: https://github.com/rclone/rclone/issues/7192 I learned about this project from Flathub, but noticed there wasn't a manifest for WinGet or Brew. I wanted to inquire ahead of time before buying a lifetime subscription, if the developer(s) are in a spot to continue working on the project for an extended period of time. Also, if there is anything stopping the app from being distributed on WinGet or Brew, which might gain more user adoption? I haven't even downloaded the app yet to check for myself, but what programming language is it built around?

if there is anything stopping the app from being distributed on WinGet or Brew, which might gain more user adoption?

We'll support more distribution channels in the future.

what programming language is it built around?

It's Flutter/Dart with lots of native code, including Swift/Kotlin, but also Golang for some components.

RemArt⭐ joined the server. 9/9/2024 9:17 AM

flana joined the server. 9/9/2024 10:18 PM

wpdlatm joined the server. 9/10/2024 9:53 AM

doni joined the server. 9/10/2024 2:17 PM

Doni joined the server. 9/10/2024 2:22 PM

Hello. Am I correct in thinking that the ability to sync files (2-way) from iOS <--> S3 (Wasabi) is still in the works? My local directory isn't selectable when I try to set up a sync and just want to make sure I'm not doing something wrong. This application is killer by the way! S3 and Rclone compatible? Awesome. (edited)

1

ffggtt joined the server. 9/10/2024 4:04 PM

doni

Hello. Am I correct in thinking that the ability to sync files (2-way) from iOS <--> S3 (Wasabi) is still in the works? My local directory isn't selectable when I try to set up a sync and just want to make sure I'm not doing something wrong. This application is killer by the way! S3 and Rclone compatible? Awesome. (edited)

Yep, unfortunately it's still not possible to select local directory on iOS. 2-way sync on iOS would work between two remotes, but I guess it's not that useful. We will get to that eventually

1

Hi all - I was looking at the properties of my workflow and how to start using S3Drive instead of what I am doing. My current workflow is based on a LUKS encrypted vault that I mount at will on my linux machines. The thing that I really like of it is that it is encrypted until I needed (aka - files are never "live"). This adds yet another layer of security (maybe unnecessary). I was wondering if S3Drive 2FA would end up doing something similar to this (aka decrypting/opening the vault only when necessary) ?

Ari

Hi all - I was looking at the properties of my workflow and how to start using S3Drive instead of what I am doing. My current workflow is based on a LUKS encrypted vault that I mount at will on my linux machines. The thing that I really like of it is that it is encrypted until I needed (aka - files are never "live"). This adds yet another layer of security (maybe unnecessary). I was wondering if S3Drive 2FA would end up doing something similar to this (aka decrypting/opening the vault only when necessary) ?

Hi, LUKS and S3Drive have some things in common, but they're completely different beasts with different guarantees and accessibility. In principle S3Drive aims to convert 3rd party cheap S3 storage as a secure place for your files, but it doesn't encrypt/decrypt your files locally - it relies on your OS security (whether LUKS, BitLocker, FileVault etc.). With LUKS, the 1st factor it the access to your machine (either physical or by other software on your machine) since such data isn't stored anywhere online. 2nd factor is the encryption password to your encrypted encryption key. With S3Drive, the 1st factor is access to your machine (similarly to the above), but also possession of access key/secret or direct access to your data by your S3 provider. 2nd factor is the encryption password as well. LUKS keeps encryption key in your RAM only when vault is opened. Once vault is closed then encryption key remains encrypted on your disk (only password that you provide can open it). If your LUKS vault is closed it's hard to beat its security, but if your machine is compromised then the moment you open the vault and type your password the attacker can potentially access your data. With S3Drive your encryption password (2FA) remains stored in the Keychain/Libsecret and relies on OS security to get it out. This is so you don't need to constantly type your password (as it's the case with the LUKS). In any case if your machine is compromised then both S3Drive and LUKS won't help you (unless you never open the LUKS vault). There are couple other items where we aim to improve security (e.g. protect credentials in local Rclone config that we create): https://s3drive.canny.io/feature-requests/p/rclone-encrypted-config

Ari

Hi all - I was looking at the properties of my workflow and how to start using S3Drive instead of what I am doing. My current workflow is based on a LUKS encrypted vault that I mount at will on my linux machines. The thing that I really like of it is that it is encrypted until I needed (aka - files are never "live"). This adds yet another layer of security (maybe unnecessary). I was wondering if S3Drive 2FA would end up doing something similar to this (aka decrypting/opening the vault only when necessary) ?

Not to confuse the above with 2FA feature that we will be implementing (https://s3drive.canny.io/feature-requests/p/implement-2fa) The one in this feature request is about protecting the access to the S3 managed account (storage plans that we'll provide), but in a context of the above discussion is just an additional factor to get the raw data access, where your true 2nd factor would be E2E encryption password (Rclone compatible) that you set up in the Profile settings. I hope that this is useful to better understand the differences between S3Drive / LUKS. (edited)

In any case if your machine is compromised then both S3Drive and LUKS won't help you (unless you never open the LUKS vault).

This is exactly what I do there - I never open the vault (unless I need to add/read files obviously) and when I am done I close the vault and push the LUKS file to S3. This gives me more protection against attackers that have access to my machine. I was wondering if S3Drive would provide a similar experience (it definitely could!) with 2FA but thanks for confirming it is not going to be the same

@Tom

Ari

In any case if your machine is compromised then both S3Drive and LUKS won't help you (unless you never open the LUKS vault).

This is exactly what I do there - I never open the vault (unless I need to add/read files obviously) and when I am done I close the vault and push the LUKS file to S3. This gives me more protection against attackers that have access to my machine. I was wondering if S3Drive would provide a similar experience (it definitely could!) with 2FA but thanks for confirming it is not going to be the same

@Tom

We could technically introduce a mode where encryption password isn't stored anywhere on disk (or even secure chip / keychain), but kept in RAM (in a similar way to LUKS), once you close the app you would have to provide this password once again. Not sure at this stage if this would be feasible to achieve with Rclone config encryption (we rely on Rclone for couple in-app functions): https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_config_encryption_check/ (edited)

Yeah supporting it in S3Drive would be awesome - Maybe I have another way but it is probably coincidental - I am using KeepassXC as keyring and that requires a password (a dialog pops if the password database is closed) - that can work "as a vault" because S3Drive would not receive the actual password until KeepassXC is unlocked

Ari

Yeah supporting it in S3Drive would be awesome - Maybe I have another way but it is probably coincidental - I am using KeepassXC as keyring and that requires a password (a dialog pops if the password database is closed) - that can work "as a vault" because S3Drive would not receive the actual password until KeepassXC is unlocked

Added feature request: https://s3drive.canny.io/feature-requests/p/implement-secure-mode-encryption-key-in-ram (edited)

Ah nice

2:24 PM

yeah rclone config should definitely be encrypted as well for that to work good point!

Flashie joined the server. 9/11/2024 5:20 PM

Regarding the local mount feature, do apps with all files permission see the files on the remote mount or do apps only see the files that are stored locally?

InfiniteAds559

Regarding the local mount feature, do apps with all files permission see the files on the remote mount or do apps only see the files that are stored locally?

What OS do you refer to? In principle other apps would be able to view the files in the mount, since they would run using the same OS user as mount itself. Unless you refer to Android, in such case other apps wouldn't see the mount - sandboxing on mobile works differently than on desktop.

Tom

What OS do you refer to? In principle other apps would be able to view the files in the mount, since they would run using the same OS user as mount itself. Unless you refer to Android, in such case other apps wouldn't see the mount - sandboxing on mobile works differently than on desktop.

MacOs & Android

Adz joined the server. 9/15/2024 5:22 AM

shaike joined the server. 9/15/2024 6:53 AM

shy joined the server. 9/15/2024 6:55 AM

hello !

6:56 AM

I really like this app , I wanted to know I haven noticed that if I buy lifetime for all platforms google drive is supported. it means that it will be also supported on the Android version ?

ThHirsch joined the server. 9/15/2024 10:46 AM

whom could answer this ?

Hi, could it be the latest Android update broke "Start sync after app starts"? I start S3Drive every night around the same time to sync everything, which always happens automatically after opening the app. But since yesterday this doesn't happen anymore and I need to tap stop/start on each folder pair to start syncing manually. Android 14, S3Drive 1.9.11, syncing between local and Rclone remotes.

9:44 PM

"Start sync after app starts" is still enabled by the way, switching it off and back on didn't help, I also rebooted my phone with no luck.

cronicmstrb8r__ joined the server. 9/15/2024 11:47 PM

shy

I really like this app , I wanted to know I haven noticed that if I buy lifetime for all platforms google drive is supported. it means that it will be also supported on the Android version ?

Yes it would be supported on all platforms, including Android. Small exception is that it doesn't yet work on iOS, but it's due to technical issues that we need to find solution for: https://s3drive.canny.io/feature-requests/p/fix-google-drive-gcs-ftp-and-sftp-missing-on-ios

Unlawful Cactus

Hi, could it be the latest Android update broke "Start sync after app starts"? I start S3Drive every night around the same time to sync everything, which always happens automatically after opening the app. But since yesterday this doesn't happen anymore and I need to tap stop/start on each folder pair to start syncing manually. Android 14, S3Drive 1.9.11, syncing between local and Rclone remotes.

Thanks for that report. I am going to check that out with our team. We've recently pushed couple improvements to Sync in general, there is a small chance that a bug slipped in here. I will let you know later today ! UPDATE: We've identified the problem. This will be fixed in a 1.9.12 release which is now being released. On Android it may take a little bit longer as we're awaiting approval from the Google Play team. (edited)

Unlawful Cactus

Hi, could it be the latest Android update broke "Start sync after app starts"? I start S3Drive every night around the same time to sync everything, which always happens automatically after opening the app. But since yesterday this doesn't happen anymore and I need to tap stop/start on each folder pair to start syncing manually. Android 14, S3Drive 1.9.11, syncing between local and Rclone remotes.

Out of curiosity, how do you start sync? Some external trigger or you start app manually?

Tom

Thanks for that report. I am going to check that out with our team. We've recently pushed couple improvements to Sync in general, there is a small chance that a bug slipped in here. I will let you know later today ! UPDATE: We've identified the problem. This will be fixed in a 1.9.12 release which is now being released. On Android it may take a little bit longer as we're awaiting approval from the Google Play team. (edited)

Awesome!

Tom

Out of curiosity, how do you start sync? Some external trigger or you start app manually?

Basically manually, but slightly automated. I have Tasker, an automation app, notify me at ten o'clock, and when I tap the notification it opens S3Drive and then the sync screen by emulating user input so I can see the syncing happening. Is there a better way currently? Like an intent or something?

Or can sync now run in the background at the specified interval? Before, there was a note somewhere in the app saying this didn't work yet.

Unlawful Cactus

Basically manually, but slightly automated. I have Tasker, an automation app, notify me at ten o'clock, and when I tap the notification it opens S3Drive and then the sync screen by emulating user input so I can see the syncing happening. Is there a better way currently? Like an intent or something?

I haven't tried myself, but opening this URL/intent: s3drive://sync might actually open the Sync screen directly without necessary user input in the drawer.

Unlawful Cactus

Or can sync now run in the background at the specified interval? Before, there was a note somewhere in the app saying this didn't work yet.

Background mode isn't yet supported, however we plan to add it in few months. We don't exactly now what might surprise us at this stage though. At the moment we're awaiting outstanding fix to 1.9.11 release as well which aims to fix the background (for media uploads) after Android 14 imposed certain restrictions and it's broke since we updated SDK recently. We were forced by Google to use latest SDK by the end of August ... but our existing background processing approach specific approval from Google: https://developer.android.com/about/versions/14/behavior-changes-14#fgs-types and https://stackoverflow.com/a/77186316 (edited)

Tom

I haven't tried myself, but opening this URL/intent: s3drive://sync might actually open the Sync screen directly without necessary user input in the drawer.

Nope, that doesn't work. (edited)

Unlawful Cactus

Nope, that doesn't work. (edited)

We'll look into this. In principle app is prepared to handle intents.

Brad joined the server. 9/17/2024 3:30 AM

Hey

I was previously using Google Drive but want to move away from Google as much as possible. S3Drive looks great and I love how I can essentially "self-host" with it by using any S3 Compatible storage

FYI the Discord link in the website footer is broken - it seems to embed a channel from this server instead of linking to the invite url (edited)

1

Luis joined the server. 9/17/2024 11:03 AM

Bastiaan joined the server. 9/17/2024 10:47 PM

JuergenHH joined the server. 9/18/2024 7:43 AM

Unlawful Cactus

Hi, could it be the latest Android update broke "Start sync after app starts"? I start S3Drive every night around the same time to sync everything, which always happens automatically after opening the app. But since yesterday this doesn't happen anymore and I need to tap stop/start on each folder pair to start syncing manually. Android 14, S3Drive 1.9.11, syncing between local and Rclone remotes.

Version 1.9.12 is now released, this shall be resolved by now. Thanks for your report!

1

TheByteBolt joined the server. 9/18/2024 7:19 PM

stevek joined the server. 9/19/2024 12:14 AM

niiqo joined the server. 9/19/2024 10:42 AM

MongMadona MN joined the server. 9/19/2024 3:33 PM

🤯 Zaphod Beeblebrox 🤯 joined the server. 9/19/2024 4:22 PM

🤯 Zaphod Beeblebrox 🤯

Click to see original message

4:23 PM

Hi. I have a general question, should I post it here, or make a post in #support

🤯 Zaphod Beeblebrox 🤯

Hi. I have a general question, should I post it here, or make a post in #support

Hi! General question probably falls here, if it turns out to be the support then we'll move to #support.

Ok thanks @Tom So a little background. I was using IBM's cloud object storage because it allowed 25GB free, but they are doing away with this plan. I wanted to see how S3Drive would work. I like it so far. There is one thing I am used to doing, and I'm not sure if it's even possible. So I have files I want to stream, like video. With IBM's cloud object storage I could access the files with a direct URL and load those in to VLC, where it would stream directly, without downloading. In S3drive I have uploaded some video files, and I've used the feature of Open With... where I select VLC. However, it has to download the file locally, and then it starts playing. Is there anyway to replicate what I was doing before, where I can generate links to the files stored in S3Drive?

4:31 PM

Or is that more dependent on the cloud storage provider's capabilities?

Yes indeed, you would right-click, use Sharing and choose: "Preshared URL". It will generate a URL which is valid for maximum 7 days. Preshared URLs are native S3, so in principle every provider supports that.

🤯 Zaphod Beeblebrox 🤯

Ok thanks @Tom So a little background. I was using IBM's cloud object storage because it allowed 25GB free, but they are doing away with this plan. I wanted to see how S3Drive would work. I like it so far. There is one thing I am used to doing, and I'm not sure if it's even possible. So I have files I want to stream, like video. With IBM's cloud object storage I could access the files with a direct URL and load those in to VLC, where it would stream directly, without downloading. In S3drive I have uploaded some video files, and I've used the feature of Open With... where I select VLC. However, it has to download the file locally, and then it starts playing. Is there anyway to replicate what I was doing before, where I can generate links to the files stored in S3Drive?

Caveat is that preshared URLs would only support unencrypted files that way (unless VLC can decrypt files via some plugin), whereas in-app player within S3Drive can also stream encrypted files, because the stream decryption is built-in.

4:35 PM

Hmm, I don't see the Sharing option This is on MacOS, but I also don't see the option on iOS.

If you use S3Drive's built-in test storage, then sharing option isn't available just yet. If you connect to external S3 (or use Rclone back-end), then such option shall appear as long as you select files (not folders). Preshared sharing generation is available for single file at a time. https://docs.s3drive.app/setup/providers/

Supported providers - S3Drive

Personal storage compatible with S3, WebDav and 70+ other Rclone back-ends

Ah ok I think that's it then. I was just testing with S3Drive's test storage. Thanks, I'll play around and find what works

Ok I found a cloud storage provider that works. I tried Oracle (omg that was a lot to setup, most complicated I've had to do), but couldn't figure out how to generate links. Cloudflare was so much easier to setup. They have 10 GB free tier.

Rodrigo Oliveira joined the server. 9/19/2024 8:48 PM

Rodrigo Oliveira

Click to see original message

noe joined the server. 9/20/2024 3:29 AM

CamBarkRo joined the server. 9/21/2024 12:25 PM

Hey hi guys, it's good to have a app like s3 drive and thanks for your work. I was trying to connect with my aws s3 bucket using accesskey and secretkey in s3drive app, but I couldn't able to connect with my bucket. Tried to create a bucket from s3drive app but unfortunately that's also not working. Is it possible to connect with my aws s3 bucket directly, if yes then please guide me to do it.

CamBarkRo

Hey hi guys, it's good to have a app like s3 drive and thanks for your work. I was trying to connect with my aws s3 bucket using accesskey and secretkey in s3drive app, but I couldn't able to connect with my bucket. Tried to create a bucket from s3drive app but unfortunately that's also not working. Is it possible to connect with my aws s3 bucket directly, if yes then please guide me to do it.

Hi ! Can you please create #support item? Please post screenshot/text of the error that you get. Please also include what "endpoint" you use to connect to the AWS S3 and whather you've configured region that matches your AWS region.

Tom

Hi ! Can you please create #support item? Please post screenshot/text of the error that you get. Please also include what "endpoint" you use to connect to the AWS S3 and whather you've configured region that matches your AWS region.

Adding custom region makes sense, thank you for your quick reply.

For those of you using rclone mount on MacOS, which option (MacFUSE, FUSE-T, or NFS mount) did you go with? And why? (edited)

Philippe joined the server. 9/24/2024 7:07 AM

Philippe

Click to see original message

Hello there! I'm trying to find an easy-to-use cloud photo solution for my family. One of my relatives likes to take photos, import them to his iPad and do some basic editing. We had been using Google Photos, but editing had always been problematic because there is no way to fetch media in Google Photos through the native iOS Files app. Furthermore, that relative always had a hard time understanding how to re-upload edited files and removing the original. So we moved to OneDrive, which allows for access in the native iOS Files app, and the PhotoSync app, which allowed for local copies of the media to be deleted after a transfer. However, OneDrive is very unpolished when it comes to photo management in my opinion, as well as collaborating on a shared album (you simply can't). Also, PhotoSync has been quite complicated to maintain due to the number of settings, somewhat unintuitive UI, and updates breaking things occasionally. I was thinking of moving back to the Google ecosystem with Google Drive instead. I discovered this app (S3Drive) in the process and it looks like a very nice project. I have a dilemma tho:

Should we go for Google Drive and one of Google One's subscription plans? The perks that come with it are somewhat interesting and it's priced competitively.
Or could S3Drive's upcoming hosted subscription plans be compatible with our use case? Being able to collaborate on shared albums (or folders) will be a must for us. Any advice would be welcome!

(edited)

Hi @Philippe, It really depends how much you value privacy and convenience and how you manage your photos. S3Drive at this stage isn't a photo management solution, however it's a great tool if you would like to simply backup your photos from your phone and/or sync your albums (currently simply folders) to a different location/locations (for redundancy purposes). For instance you can backup your photos from S3Drive, but then you might decide to clean up some of them on your phone. There isn't mechanism (in backup functionality) to delete them on the other end. You would need to use the S3Drive Sync (this sync changes as well) and then select local folder (this isn't yet supported on iOS though). We certainly aim to catch up in these areas, but it will take us some time before on top of file management tools we gear up with media specific ones. In the meantime you might also give https://ente.io/ a go. I haven't tried it myself, but it's basically E2E encrypted photo management solution. (edited)

Ente - Private cloud storage for your photos, videos and more

Protect your photos and videos with Ente - a secure, cross-platform, open source, encrypted photo storage app. Automatic backups, end-to-end encryption, collaborative albums, family plans, free trial, library-sync, 1-click import, human support, locked photos, live photos, descriptions, private sharing, search and more.