Migration Guide Nextcloud macOS
Google Takeout exports strip real dates and buries GPS in JSON files. Uploading directly to Nextcloud causes thousands of photos to appear as "taken today". FolioSort completely restores your EXIF metadata locally on your Mac before your migration.
Nextcloud is a self-hosted collaboration platform — and Nextcloud Photos is a capable gallery built on top of it.
Nextcloud is fully open source under AGPL. You can audit the code, run it yourself, and know exactly what happens to your photos.
Unlike Google Photos, Nextcloud treats photos as regular files in a folder structure. Your EXIF-organized library from FolioSort maps directly to Nextcloud's file system.
Home server, Synology, QNAP, VPS, Raspberry Pi — Nextcloud runs wherever you have Docker or a web server. No monthly fees.
The Nextcloud Desktop app for macOS syncs your organized folder continuously — like Dropbox but completely private and self-hosted.
At takeout.google.com, export Google Photos only. Download all zip parts. Extract into a single local folder on your Mac.
Use Takeout Import mode to read JSON sidecars and write real timestamps and GPS into each image's EXIF. Duplicates are detected by content hash and removed.
Run FolioSort Mover with {YYYY}/{MM}/ or {YYYY}/{City}/ template. Your library becomes a clean chronological folder structure ready for Nextcloud.
Download the Nextcloud Desktop client for macOS from nextcloud.com. Connect it to your self-hosted instance. Create a sync folder that maps to your Nextcloud Photos directory.
Move or copy your FolioSort-organized folder into your Nextcloud sync directory. The client uploads everything, maintaining the folder structure that Nextcloud Photos reads for its gallery view.
In your Nextcloud instance, enable the Photos app. It reads EXIF from your uploaded files and builds a timeline with correct dates, a location map view, and album support.
Nextcloud Photos' gallery reads EXIF from files — but its file view also reflects your folder structure. FolioSort creates both perfectly.
Nextcloud Photos' timeline groups by month. A {YYYY}/{MM}/ folder structure from FolioSort means each folder corresponds exactly to a timeline month — making navigation fast.
Nextcloud Maps can display your photos on a world map by GPS. FolioSort restores GPS from Takeout JSON sidecars so every location-tagged photo appears on the map.
Nextcloud doesn't deduplicate. If you upload Takeout files without deduplicating first, every photo will appear twice or three times in the gallery. FolioSort removes duplicates before upload.
FolioSort verifies every file during the local move. You can then upload to Nextcloud knowing your files are intact — no corruption introduced in the FolioSort step.
Immich is purpose-built as a Google Photos replacement with face recognition and memories. Compare with Nextcloud Photos to choose what fits your workflow.
Running Nextcloud on a Synology? This guide covers the SMB transfer workflow and Synology Photos as an alternative to Nextcloud.
Everything you need to know about what Google Takeout breaks and the complete FolioSort workflow to fix it — regardless of your destination.
FolioSort fixes your Google Takeout files before you upload to Nextcloud. Correct dates, restored GPS, zero duplicates.