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Use Photos+ Cloud Library with Backblaze B2
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    Use Photos+ Cloud Library with Backblaze B2

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      Article summary

      Photos+ Cloud Library is an application for iOS that lets you store your Photos library in Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage using Backblaze B2 S3-Compatible API. You can configure your Backblaze B2 account, as well as your Photos+ application, so that it integrates with Backblaze B2.

      Enable Backblaze B2

      Before you begin: You must have a Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage account. If you already have a Backblaze account and the left navigation menu contains a B2 Cloud Storage section, your account is already enabled for Backblaze B2.

      1. Sign in to the Backblaze web console.
      2. In the user menu in the upper-right corner of the page, select My Settings.
      3. Under Enabled Products, select the checkbox to enable B2 Cloud Storage.
      4. Review the Terms and Conditions, and click OK to accept them. 

      Create a Bucket

      Note
      Photos+ requires an empty, S3-compatible Backblaze B2 bucket to connect. If you do not have a bucket that is empty and S3-compatible, you must create a new bucket.
      1. Sign in to the Backblaze web console.
      2. In the left navigation menu under B2 Cloud Storage, click Buckets.
      3. Click Create a Bucket.
      4. Enter a name for your bucket. Bucket names must be at least six characters and globally unique.
        A message is displayed if your bucket name is already in use.
      5. Select a privacy setting: Private or Public. Files that are in a private bucket require authentication to perform an action, for example, downloading. Public buckets do not require authentication so you can easily share files. You can change a bucket's privacy settings at any time.
      6. If applicable, enable a Backblaze B2 server-side encryption key.
      7. Enable Object Lock to restrict a file from being modified or deleted for a specified period of time.
      8. Click Create a Bucket, and copy the value that is in the Endpoint field; you may need this value later.
      9. Click Lifecycle Settings to control how long to keep the files in your new bucket.
      Note
      If this is your first time creating a public bucket, complete the following tasks to ensure that you have the correct permissions to create a public bucket:

      1. Verify your email address.
      2. Have a payment history on file, or use the credit card form to pay a small fee that is credited to your account balance.

      Adjust Lifecycle Rules

      1. In the left navigation menu under B2 Cloud Storage, click Buckets.
      2. Locate the empty S3-compatible bucket that you created, and click Lifecycle Rules.
      3. Select Keep only the last version of the file, and click Update Bucket.

      Create an App key

      Application keys control access to your Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage account and the buckets that are contained in your account.
      1. Sign in to the Backblaze web console.
      2. In the left navigation menu under B2 Cloud Storage, click Application Keys.
      3. Click Add a New Application Key, and enter an app key name. Please note: You cannot search an app key by this name; therefore, app key names are not required to be globally unique. Key names are limited to 100 characters and can contain letters, numbers, and "-", but not I18N characters, such as é, à, and ü.
      4. Select All or a specific bucket in the Allow Access to Bucket(s) dropdown menu.
      5. Optionally, select your access type (Read and Write, Read Only, or Write Only).
      6. Optionally, select the Allow List All Bucket Names checkbox (required for the B2 Native API b2_list_buckets and the S3-Compatible API S3 List Buckets operations).
      7. Optionally, enter a file name prefix to restrict application key access only to files with that prefix. Depending on what you selected in step #4, this limits application key access to files with the specified prefix for all buckets or just the selected bucket.
      8. Optionally, enter a positive integer to limit the time, in seconds, before the application key expires. The value must be less than 1000 days (in seconds).
      9. Click Create New Key, and note the resulting keyID and applicationKey values.
      Note
      When you create a new app key, the response contains the actual key string, for example N2Zug0evLcHDlh_L0Z0AJhiGGdY. You can always find the keyID on this page, but for security, the applicationKey appears only once. Make sure you copy and securely save this value elsewhere.

      Set Up Photos+

      1. Install Photos+ Cloud Library Application from the App Store.
        You can search for the app on the store, or visit this page from your iOS device.
      2. Open the Photos+ application, and click Sign Up to create your account.
      3. In the bottom navigation menu, click(user).
      4. Click(settings), and click Configure.
      5. Select Backblaze as your storage provider, and enter your App key and Key ID.
      6. Click Next.
      7. Select the empty bucket that you created, and click Save.
        The Photos+ library is now linked to your Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage account.

      Sync the Photos+ Library with Backblaze B2

      Photos automatically sync to your Backblaze B2 bucket after you set up Photos+, as indicated by the red cloud icon in the top navigation. The following steps detail how to upload files that did not automatically upload.

      1. In the bottom navigation menu, click(synchronize).
      2. Click Start to upload  files that are not yet synched.
      3. To remove a file from a Backblaze B2 bucket, delete the file from your album or folder, empty the Photos+ trash, and perform another sync.
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