Organizing shared photos without duplicates

[clamydo]

I cannot assign an individual album to a photo shared with me. In fact, no organisational feature seems to work. This is not only confusing, but IMHO a sever limitation in the user experience. This makes family sharing quite hairy.

I'd like to suggest that photos shared with me should behave just like my own photos.

Perhaps a duplicate of ente-io/photos-app#1401?

[vishnukvmd]

Hey, yes, the underlying issue for ente-io/photos-app#1401 is the same. But I'll keep this issue open as well, since it does a better job of documenting the behavior expected out of shared data.

This is very much on our radar, just that we're currently focused on delivering Search. Once that's done, we'll get back to ironing out the Sharing flows.

[shrkmz]

I'd like to request that this feature have a flag to optionally disable on a per-album basis. In my case, I share albums with Viewers (not collaborators) and would like them not to be able to "heart" a photo and have it downloaded into their own accounts. My goal is to share family photos that I can limit distribution of and this effectively pulls photos out of my circle of control (where before I could simply remove a viewer, now they'll have a copy of a photo even if removed).

[clamydo]

@shrkmz I'd argue that once you have shared a photo it must be considered out of your control because it is always possible to make a copy regardless.

[shrkmz]

I don't necessarily share that perspective here, and unfortunately "always possible to make a copy regardless" is a straw man argument here IMO. A couple of examples that illustrate my thought process:

• Signal messaging has the option of deleting media for everyone in a message thread. An example of implemented functionality with the intent of allowing the original sender to remove data if they desired. The argument can be made that someone on the other end can take a screenshot but that is exactly the straw man argument.
• Google Photos has the option of removing a collaborator from an album and thereby removing their access to the photos: https://support.google.com/photos/answer/9789702?hl=en#zippy=%2Chow-we-protect-your-shared-albums%2Cyoure-in-control

One more is Proton Drive's sharing, while they don't have the same feature set implemented as Ente does, it's clear the goal is to ensure the owner has as much control as possible on what is shared and when https://proton.me/blog/share-photos-online-privately

I think the album owner should have control over whether participants can download media from an album they own. Having the platform default to allowing external parties to download with no ability to disable is a privacy anti-pattern. Tbh, I'd consider not using the album sharing feature at all if I know sharing once means I may never be able to remove someone I invited once from access to that media.

[ua741]

Google Photos has the option of removing a collaborator from an album and thereby removing their access to the photos:

You can do the same within Ente Photos as well.
For what it's worth, in the case of Google Photos or any other photo storage app that provides similar functionality, once a participant has copied the photos to their personal storage space, the copies remain intact even if the original uploader deletes the photos.
If I remember correctly, in Signal, if a person forwards a media file, the forwarded media copy remains intact.

[shrkmz]

I do understand that a copy can be made in any other app manually. The previous configuration in Ente where a Viewer would have to make a conscious choice to forward or download media and therefore make a copy outside the album owners control was perfect though.

The Heart/Favorite now does this without clear information for the Viewer, and there's no way to disable this by the album owner.

I think referencing the fact that media can be forwarded and a screenshot be taken and so on is just a straw-man argument. Respectfully, Ente's goal is to be privacy-focused as an alternative to Google Photos, so I'd expect it to be in line with the mission to provide the content owner with as much control as possible, and the Viewer with as many guardrails as possible, to prevent data leaking.