Synology NAS digital photo frame on Android

Updated August 10, 2026 · 8 min read

If your photos live on a Synology NAS, you can display them on an Android digital photo frame over your local network without uploading anything to the cloud. Fravora connects to Synology DiskStation devices via SMB — the same protocol Synology uses for Windows file sharing — and serves photos directly to the tablet's slideshow. Your photos stay on your NAS and never leave your home network.

Why Synology + Android frame is a strong combination

• No cloud dependency: SMB is a local network protocol. The connection works entirely within your home — no internet required, no third-party service in the path
• No storage limits: Your Synology can hold terabytes of photos. The frame scans and rotates through all of them
• Existing organisation respected: The folder structure you already maintain on the NAS is exactly what the frame sees. No duplicate library to manage
• Works with Synology Photos: The shared folders that Synology Photos uses are standard SMB shares. Fravora can read them directly

Step 1: Enable SMB on your Synology NAS

1. Log into the Synology DSM web interface
2. Open Control Panel → File Services → SMB
3. Enable the SMB service and click Apply
4. Note your NAS's local IP address — you'll find it in Control Panel → Network → Network Interface or in your router's device list. It will look like 192.168.x.x

Step 2: Create a dedicated user for the frame (recommended)

Rather than using your admin account, create a read-only user specifically for the frame. This limits what the app can access if the credentials are ever compromised.

1. Open Control Panel → User & Group → Create
2. Create a user (e.g., frameuser) with a strong password
3. In the user's permissions, grant Read only access to the shared folders containing your photos
4. Disable access to all other shared folders and applications

Step 3: Connect Fravora to your Synology

When you first launch Fravora, the onboarding guides you through adding your first source. Select Network share (SMB/NAS) and the connection flow covers all the steps below. To add more Synology shares later, go to Settings → Sources → Add network share.

1. Enter the NAS address: the IP address noted in Step 1 (e.g., 192.168.1.100). You can also use the Synology hostname if your router resolves it (e.g., DiskStation)
2. Enter the share name — the name of the shared folder as it appears in DSM File Station (e.g., photo or homes)
3. Enter the username and password for the frame user created in Step 2. Both DOMAIN\user and user@domain formats are supported if your NAS uses a domain
4. Tap Test Connection to verify before saving
5. Use the Folder Picker to browse the share and select the specific photo folders you want in the slideshow. Synology system folders like @eaDir and #recycle are automatically hidden

Step 4: Create an album and start the slideshow

1. In the onboarding (or later in Settings → Albums), assign your Synology folder targets to an album and name it
2. Enable the album and return to the slideshow
3. Fravora scans the selected folders and starts displaying your photos

Handling NAS sleep and outages

Synology NAS devices can go into a low-power sleep state when idle. If the NAS is asleep when the frame tries to scan, Fravora treats it as a temporary outage: the slideshow continues from cached photos, a non-blocking warning icon appears in the notification strip, and the app retries automatically. Configure the retry interval (1/5/10/15/30/60 minutes) under Settings → Sources → NAS reconnect interval.

If your Synology has HDD spin-down enabled, the first scan after a sleep period may take 10–30 seconds for the drives to spin up. Increase the SMB retry count (up to 7 retries) in Settings → Sources to handle this gracefully.