yenu is a simple tool to share images among a trusted group of people. No complicated setup, no fancy features nobody really uses, no role management, no cloud, no bullshit. Just sharing images to people you like and store your data where you want it to be.

Another social platform?

Yes and no. This is not Facebook, Instagram or a WhatsApp-Group. This is a software package you have to host yourself. You are in charge of your data. This sounds scary, but it is the right way to build and maintain a decentralized internet. No worry about the setup, it is easier than you think.

Where can I run this thing?

Quick answer: Wherever you want. You can boot up an Amazon EC2 instance and deploy it there or you can put it on your RaspberryPi and host it yourself from your own internet connection from home (preferred way!). You can also rent a vServer and deploy it there. All you need is a Java RE and a internet connection.

Installation and configuration

First, download the latest version and extract the archive. Compare the SHA256 hashsum to make sure, you have the original files.

Next, you can simply run the jar-file with the following command.

$ java -jar yenu.jar

If you like docker, you can use docker-compose to boot up the application and send it to the background. Download the sourcecode and run the following commands

$ docker-compose build
$ docker-compose up -d

Where is my data?

All your images are placed in the data/gallery/ directory, next to the yenu.jar. When uploading a image, the raw file is placed into the raw/ folder, if you need the original later (pull out some metadata like GPS coordinates, scale it into other formats, print it etc.). The scaled down images for the details page are stored in the normal/ folder. The thumbnails/ folder contains the square images for the thumbnail preview. The database used is a SQLite3 database, stored in the yenu.db file. You can open the database at any time with your favourite SQLite3 client.

I want to migrate my images from X to yenu

There is no migrate or import script, because this application should be as simple as possible and do one thing well: Share images. If you know a little Clojure and can hack a together a little script, you can easily migrate your data from any other system to yenu: Just create the database entries, and copy the images to the right place.

License, copyrights and author

This tool is written in Clojure by Aaron Fischer. It is free to use and is placed under the GPL v.3. You can inspect and download the sourcecode here. The images, comments and other metadata belongs to you. Make sure, you store the data on a place you trust and make backups.