Moved all my (925) contacts from Apple iCloud to my Nextcloud instance hosted in Germany at a German hosting provider because both Apple and Nextcloud have good support for the open CardDAV standard. Everything JustWorks™️, as before, but now without storing data at Apple.

The Nextcloud instance from Hetzner that I use comes with 1TB(!) of storage for just 5€/mo, including backups etc. That’s quite acceptable :) And yes, I am very aware of the fact that storing data encrypted in Nextcloud needs a few additional steps. And yes, other companies make similar offers. And yes, you can absolutely #selfhost too but that’s not the point of this thread. It’s about moving your contact list away from Apple to an open source solution, enabled by open standards.

@jwildeboer Good move! I did it several years ago and it feels great not be locked in any walled garden. iOS even has CardDAV support built-in, on Android I still have to install DAVx5.
I'm now experimenting with GrapheneOS on my phone, not being directly dependent on an US-based service with my phone at all. It's a tough one, but due to having contacts, calendars, notes, tasks in Nextcloud, I had those things up and running there in no time.

@jwildeboer Next up: icloud Photos -> Immich? It‘s a breeze with icloudpd, just back up all your photos once and then make the backup dir your Immich library.

@jwildeboer Would this also be possible for me, being rather a user than a nerd?

@simon @jwildeboer Maintaining Nextcloud on Hetzner and working with it is easy even for a slightly advanced user. Just setting up the service doesn't have great UX. It's not like "pick a plan, fill out the card details and you're good to go", the process is more like traditional hosting, but once you get past that, you're fine.

@simon

Some hosting providers offer Managed Nextcloud as a service (like the one I use at https://www.ionos.de/office-loesungen/managed-nextcloud-hosting ), where you only need to bring in your domain name, and everything else will be taken care of.

You don't have to be a nerd and run services from the command-line.

You will get admin access to a Nextcloud Web UI and it is quite similar to any generic admin interface of a mail service provider.

@jwildeboer

@jwildeboer if only Hetzner could handle accented characters in people's name fields

honestly, I feel offended by not being able to spell my first name correctly

Luís

(And, unfortunately as always, the reply thread immediately fills up with people telling everyone that THEIR alternative to MY decision is much better. Again. This only makes casual readers feel insecure and ultimately leads them to not take any step, as they fear they might make a wrong decision. Why are you people always like that?)

@jwildeboer yes, I know that

that's just ignoring Europeans, I bet they support the umlaut

@jwildeboer reason being I sorta gave up a while ago trying to fight idiotic systems

Specially because they were mostly USA based, where they only know one language

@jwildeboer <Adds CardDAV to the hundreds of other things I need to investigate> 🤣
Thanks for sharing!

Hi @jwildeboer question for a friend who is using an iPhone. Can the data also be backupped from the phone itself without iCloud to something like Nextcloud? Or is iCloud needed to do this?

Anyway, I will jot down how I migrated my contacts with a few clicks and one copy/paste from Apple iCloud to Nextcloud in my next blog post at https://jan.wildeboer.net so you can all see what I did and decide if that's something you can do too :)

Blog post now live at https://social.wildeboer.net/@jwildeboer/114111281370930331 If you want to add comments that show up under the blog post, just reply to my toot at https://social.wildeboer.net/@jwildeboer/114111281370930331

@jwildeboer @sxa One nice iOS-surprise I had recently was that it was relatively easy to configure email with IMAP inbox and SMTP identity in different domains. I did not expect this would be possible thus only recently had my email configured to my phone in the first place...

@jwildeboer @sxa I agree with this one.

And I prefer iOS devices over Android because I rather pay some extras euros for extra privacy than be worried how my data will be shared. Apple and iCloud are not perfect but considering alternative ecosystems for mobile devices I consider their closed ecosystem in a way "least evil" :-) I'm least concerned of my privacy and they do pretty good job on securing the device.

@jwildeboer @sxa Generally I don't live by my phone and try to be away from it as much as possible. In this usage model iPhone causes me least headaches. I.e. I proactively hate any possible phone but can manage my anger with iOS :-)