A Google Photos alternative with no cloud: photos only on your device

Cloud photo services, such as Google Photos, keep your images on the company's servers. webpins does the opposite: the photos stay only in your browser. Each approach has advantages, and this guide shows both frankly.

webpins is an independent project and has no connection with Google. “Google Photos” is a Google trademark and appears here only to give an example of the kind of service.

Where webpins is different

• No account and no sign-up: you open it and use it.
• The photos do not leave your device: there is no server to receive them, so nobody analyzes them or uses them for anything.
• Free and with no ads.
• Works without internet after the first visit, and can be installed as an app.
• Password-protected albums, encrypted in the browser itself.

What webpins does not do

• It does not sync between devices: each browser has its own gallery. To take the photos elsewhere, you have to make a backup and restore it there.
• It does not create links to share albums with other people.
• It does not recognize faces or objects in photos: search is by name and caption.
• It does not back up to the cloud on its own: the backup is made by you, as a .zip file or in a folder.
• It depends on the browser to keep the data: if that is cleared, the photos are gone. That is why the backup matters.

Who it suits

webpins suits people who want an organized, private gallery, to view and arrange photos on their own device: trip collections, reference images, project photos, a personal archive. If you need to see the same photos on several devices automatically, or to share albums by link, a cloud service meets that need better.

You can use both

Nothing stops you from keeping the cloud service for everyday use and using webpins for what you would rather keep to yourself. Start with the guide on the private photo gallery.