Media

Pictures, files and the front door

Three sub-views: Photos for your Synology Photos library, Drive for Synology Drive and team folders, and Cameras for Surveillance Station live view. All three work over QuickConnect, not just on your own network.

Synology Photos library with thumbnail previews

On this page

Synology Photos
HEIC and blank tiles
Synology Drive
Surveillance Station
How live view connects

Photos

Your whole library, not just albums

A summary at the top - how many photos, how many albums - then Recent Photos as a grid, and everything else a tap away.

Browse by folder. Walk the library's actual folder structure, the way DS Photo let you, without creating an album first. This is the thing people miss most when they move to Synology Photos.
Albums, yours and shared. Your own albums plus albums other people shared with you, opened with their access key.
Full screen with pinch to zoom. Tap any photo.
Download or share any photo straight from the phone.
Re-index the library. Ask the NAS to rebuild its thumbnails when tiles come up blank - the same operation as DSM's own re-index, started from here.
It works away from home. Thumbnails and full images load over QuickConnect, a VPN or mobile data, not just on the LAN.

A DSM quirk, handled

Why your iPhone photos are not blank here

On DSM 7.2.2 and later, the NAS stopped generating preview images for HEIC files - the format every recent iPhone shoots in. Clients that expect the NAS to have made a thumbnail get nothing, and show a broken tile.

Syno Manager decodes those photos on your device instead, which is what Synology's own app does. Your recent iPhone shots appear as pictures. It costs a little more work on the phone and nothing at all on the NAS.

Still seeing blanks on older photos? Those are usually genuinely missing thumbnails rather than HEIC. Use re-index and let the NAS rebuild them - it takes a while on a big library, and it runs on the NAS, so you can close the app.

Drive

Personal Drive and team folders

Starts at /mydrive and navigates like a file browser, with team folders alongside your personal one.

Folders show their modified date; files show size and date.
Open a file's detail for the rest of what Drive holds about it.
Download and share - and downloads work off-LAN over QuickConnect, which is the part that usually does not.
Synology Office documents live here, which is why the Office screen is a status page rather than an editor.

Synology Drive browsing personal drive folders and files

Cameras

Surveillance Station live view

Every camera Surveillance Station knows about, with a count at the top and a grid-or-list switch on the right. Your choice of layout is remembered.

Two dots per camera. The left one is whether the camera is online; the right one is whether it is recording.
H.264 cameras show a live snapshot on their tile, so the grid is a wall of current stills.
H.265 cameras say Tap to view. DSM does not produce snapshot images for H.265, so there is no still to show until the stream opens. The card says that rather than showing an empty box and letting you wonder.
Tap any camera for full-screen live view, with a mute control and a LIVE indicator.
Stream time follows the NAS clock, daylight saving included, so the timestamp burned into the picture matches the recordings.

The connection

How live view actually connects

There is one per-NAS toggle behind this, set when you add the NAS and changeable later: Tunnel camera live view through DSM port.

Toggle	How the stream travels	Best for
Off (default)	Straight to RTSP on port 554.	Your own network. Lower latency, fewer hops. Needs port 554 reachable from wherever you are watching.
On	Tunnelled over the DSM HTTPS port you already connect on, as a secure WebSocket.	Watching from outside. Nothing extra to expose, because it reuses the port you already reach DSM on.

If live view works at home and not away, this toggle is the first thing to change. Turning it on is almost always the fix, and it does not require any router configuration.

The camera view here is a real one. Nothing on this site is a mock-up, which is also why several other screenshots carry a blur.

Full-screen live view carries the camera name, a LIVE indicator while the stream is running, and a mute control. The timestamp burned into the picture follows the NAS clock, so it matches the recordings.

Full-screen Surveillance Station live view with the LIVE indicator and mute control

Common questions

Media FAQ

Can I browse my Synology Photos library by folder?

Yes. You can walk the library's actual folder structure the way DS Photo did, without having to create an album first, and you can also open your own albums and albums shared with you.

Why do some of my iPhone photos show as blank tiles in other apps?

On DSM 7.2.2 and later the NAS stops building preview images for HEIC files. Syno Manager decodes those photos on your device instead, so recent iPhone shots appear as pictures rather than broken tiles.

Can I watch my cameras when I am not at home?

Yes. Turn on Tunnel camera live view through DSM port when you add the NAS, and live view is carried over the DSM HTTPS port you already use, so RTSP port 554 does not need to be exposed.

Why do some cameras say tap to view instead of showing a picture?

Because they are H.265. DSM only produces live snapshot images for H.264 cameras, so an H.265 camera has no still to show until you open its stream.

Can I play back a recording?

The app shows live view. Reviewing and exporting recorded footage belongs in Surveillance Station itself, where the timeline and the export tools are.