PunkBackup 🤘
Tus recuerdos. Tu USB. Cero dependencia de la nube.
🌐 punkbackup.com
A one-directional (iPhone/iPad → PC) photo and video backup system over
local WiFi. No cable, no iCloud, no subscription, no Docker, no NAS —
just a Windows PC, a USB drive, and your iPhone's built-in Shortcuts app.
Multiple people/devices, each with their own profile and their own
destination drive.
Why
Cloud photo backups are convenient and also: a recurring bill, someone
else's server, and a company that can change the terms whenever it wants.
Self-hosted photo servers like Immich or PhotoPrism solve the cloud part,
but trade it for a different chore — Docker, a reverse proxy, a NAS or a
server that has to stay on 24/7. PunkBackup skips both: it copies your
files to a drive you own, over a network you control, using nothing but
your iPhone's built-in Shortcuts app and a small Python server on your own
PC that's off by default and only runs while you're actually backing up.
PunkBackup isn't trying to replace your photo gallery app — it doesn't
do face recognition, albums, or sharing. It does one thing: get every
photo and video off your iPhone and onto a drive you physically own,
incrementally, without ever touching or deleting anything on the phone.
If you want a full self-hosted Google Photos replacement, Immich or
PhotoPrism do more than this ever will — PunkBackup is for when you just
want the boring backup part, with nothing else to configure or maintain.
| PunkBackup | Immich / PhotoPrism | PhotoSync | iCloud / Google Photos |
|---|
| Server runs | Only when you turn it on | 24/7 (Docker/NAS) | — (device-to-device) | Someone else's, always |
| Setup | One .exe + one iOS Shortcut | Docker + reverse proxy + storage | App Store app | Just sign in |
| Your files live on | A USB drive you own | A disk/NAS you own | Flexible (local, cloud, NAS) | Their cloud |
| Cost | Free, open source | Free, open source | Paid app | Subscription past the free tier |
| Good for | "Just back up my iPhone, nothing fancy" | A full photo library: search, AI, sharing | Flexible power-user sync without self-hosting | Zero setup, don't mind the lock-in |
How it works
- A small server runs on your Windows PC (off by default — you turn it on
when you want it).
- Each person/device gets a profile: its own secret token, its own
destination folder (can be a different USB drive per person).
- A native iOS Shortcut (no App Store install) checks your Photos
library against what's actually in your current destination folder, and
uploads whatever's missing — manually, or automatically when you
connect to your home WiFi.
- Nothing is ever deleted, moved, or modified on the iPhone. Nothing is
ever silently overwritten at the destination — a genuine name+content
conflict keeps both files.
- Optionally, each profile can also keep a second copy on a
different drive — a manual, verified, one-way sync, so your photos
don't live on only one piece of hardware.
See PLAN.md for the full architecture and design decisions, and
AGENTS.md if you're an AI agent (or a human) rebuilding or
extending this from scratch — it documents several non-obvious iOS
Shortcuts limitations that shaped the API, so you don't have to rediscover
them the hard way.
Getting started
⬇ Download PunkBackupSetup.exe — Windows 10/11, no Python required. Run it, accept the one admin prompt (Program Files + Firewall rule), done.
⚠ Not code-signed. This is an independent open-source project without
a paid code-signing certificate, so Windows SmartScreen will warn you once
at install, and some antivirus software (Avast in particular) may flag or
even close the app on heuristics alone. Both are expected — see the
Installation Manual's "not code-signed" section for the one-time fix.
Read the source yourself if you want to verify what it does first.
- Installation Manual (PDF, EN) · Manual de instalación (PDF, ES)
- Usage Manual (PDF, EN) · Manual de uso (PDF, ES)
- iPhone Setup Manual (PDF, EN) · Configuración del iPhone (PDF, ES)
- Troubleshooting Manual (PDF, EN) · Solución de problemas (PDF, ES)
- Uninstallation Manual (PDF, EN) · Desinstalación (PDF, ES)
Development
py -m venv .venv
.venv\Scripts\python.exe -m pip install -r requirements.txt
.venv\Scripts\python.exe -m pytest tests -q
.venv\Scripts\python.exe main.py
License
MIT — see LICENSE.
