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piGallery2
MITpiGallery2 is a self-hosted gallery that replaces Google Photos with a directory-first, read-only web viewer for your local photo archive.
Open-source alternative to — compare it against:
Overview
Patrik Balla built piGallery2 to host photo libraries on low-resource microcomputers like the Raspberry Pi without touching underlying storage directories. The application mounts an existing folder structure in read-only mode, converting home folders into a searchable web gallery without database ingestion. Original media files remain unaltered on disk while family members view albums from any browser.
Why piGallery2 instead of Google Photos
Google Photos centers photo management on proprietary cloud storage, uploading pictures to remote servers and organizing them through automated algorithms. That model simplifies browsing, but forces users to surrender custody of raw files and pay recurring storage fees. In contrast, piGallery2 fits into a filesystem-first routine. Organizing pictures on a computer or network share by year or event renders directly in a web interface without altering original files.
The workflow trade-off balances automation against data ownership. Google Photos automatically uploads phone camera rolls and clusters faces via remote machine learning. piGallery2 omits automatic phone backups and face-tag creation, instead reading pre-existing Adobe XMP face tags, mapping GPS coordinates, and sharing password-protected folder links. Because the server mounts media folders read-only, it cannot overwrite or delete originals. Migration friction is absent: pointing the application at a directory starts it, and leaving requires only stopping the container.
What it does well
- Folder mirroring: Preserves your desktop folder layout so you never have to re-sort albums or learn separate tagging tools.
- Read-only safety: Connects to storage drives without write permissions, ensuring source files are never altered, compressed, or deleted.
- Interactive map exploration: Plots geotagged vacation snapshots on world maps with GPX track support, letting family members trace travel routes.
- Sharable protected links: Generates password-protected links for specific albums with optional expiration dates for straightforward sharing with relatives.
- Lightweight previews: Creates compact thumbnails and cached previews so mobile devices and slow home connections browse without delays.
- Metadata search: Filters archives using boolean queries, file names, keywords, and pre-existing Adobe XMP face tags.
