Migration Guide Any NAS macOS
Google Takeout exports strip real dates and buries GPS in JSON files. Uploading directly to a NAS Drive causes thousands of photos to appear as "taken today". FolioSort completely restores your EXIF metadata locally on your Mac before your migration.
If your NAS can share a folder over SMB (which all modern NAS devices can), FolioSort can transfer to it.
Mounting your NAS in Finder makes it available as a destination in FolioSort automatically.
smb://192.168.1.x or smb://your-nas-hostnamesmb://diskstationsmb://qnapsmb://nas.localExport from takeout.google.com. Extract all zips locally. Run FolioSort Takeout Import to restore EXIF dates and GPS from JSON sidecars. Duplicates removed.
In Finder: ⌘K → enter your NAS address → connect. Your NAS Share appears in Finder's sidebar. FolioSort sees it automatically as a network location.
In FolioSort: source = fixed Takeout folder, destination = your NAS share. Pick template {YYYY}/{MM}/. Run with verification. Files go direct — Mac is just the coordinator.
A 4-bay NAS with 4×8 TB drives gives you 32 TB of capacity for under €700 in drives. At Google Photos prices, that's centuries of storage fees.
Loading a 50 MB RAW file from a local NAS over gigabit ethernet takes under a second. No waiting for Google to "download from cloud" on slow days.
No terms of service changes. No price increases. No algorithmic curation. Your NAS holds exactly the files you put on it, in exactly the structure you chose.
Every device on your home network — phones, tablets, TVs, Macs — can access the NAS. No account sharing headaches or per-person storage tiers.
Run Immich in Docker on your NAS and point it at your FolioSort-organized library. Get Google Photos' UI on your own hardware.
Have a Synology NAS? This guide covers the specific Synology Photos workflow and best practices for organizing your library on DSM.
NAS + S3 is the gold-standard home photo setup. Local speed + cloud durability. This guide covers the S3 upload step after your NAS migration.
FolioSort fixes your Takeout files and transfers directly to your NAS with checksums. SMB and AFP support in Pro.