FilesNest

Mirror your Mac's Photos library to storage you control — a self-hosted server, a local folder, or a mounted drive. No local database on the client — your server is the single source of truth.

This is a one-way sync, not an archival backup. The server mirrors what's currently in your Photos library — if you delete a photo on your Mac, its copy on the server is removed too (iCloud is untouched either way). If you want a copy that survives you deleting the original, keep that in mind before relying on this as your only backup.

_{Menu bar popover — live sync progress, counts, pause/resume  ·  Settings — self-hosted FilesNest server  ·  Settings — or sync to a local folder}

Features

• Continuous one-way sync of your Mac Photos library, running quietly from the menu bar
• Resumable uploads (TUS protocol) — large files and flaky connections survive interruption
• Streams assets directly, no temp files, no whole-file buffering
• Pause, resume, and trigger manual syncs anytime
• Sync counts, progress, and a clear view of failed items
• Credentials stored in the macOS Keychain, never on disk in plain text
• Point it at any server you host — nothing leaves your infrastructure
• Or skip the server entirely: sync straight to a local folder or mounted drive (external disk, NAS share)

Install the macOS app

Homebrew (recommended)

brew tap moontechs/files-nest https://github.com/moontechs/files-nest
brew trust moontechs/files-nest
brew install --cask filesnest

Homebrew 6 refuses to load casks from non-official taps until you explicitly trust them, failing with Refusing to load cask ... from untrusted tap. The brew trust line above clears that for this tap; use brew trust --cask moontechs/files-nest/filesnest to trust only this one cask instead. Your choice is recorded in ~/.homebrew/trust.json.

On Homebrew 5.x and older the command doesn't exist (Unknown command: trust) and nothing enforces trust — skip that line and tap/install directly.

Direct download

Grab the latest signed and notarized .dmg from Releases.

Requires macOS 14+.

Self-hosting the server

A single static Go binary. Easiest path: Docker Compose.

1. Download docker-compose.yml and Caddyfile into a folder on your server.

2. Set your domain and credentials, then start it:

   DOMAIN=backup.example.com \
   BACKUP_USER=admin \
   BACKUP_PASS=changeme \
   docker compose up -d

This runs the server plus Caddy with automatic HTTPS (Let's Encrypt). Point the macOS app's Settings at https://backup.example.com with the same credentials.

Running on a NAS/home-server platform that already terminates TLS for you (Umbrel, ZimaOS, TrueNAS, Unraid)? Use docker-compose.prebuilt.yml instead — just the FilesNest server pulled from GHCR, no Caddy, no host port 80/443, listening on 8080 for the platform's own reverse proxy.

No public domain, bare-metal install, and full config reference: server/README.md.

How it works

The macOS app streams photos and videos straight from your Photos library to your server over resumable HTTP uploads. It keeps no local database — every sync decision is made by asking the server what it already has. Full architecture: docs/architecture.md.

License

AGPL-3.0