Yeah, I’m frequently discouraged and unmotivated, despite being financially secure I hate having no income and nothing to work on so I often take on projects outsides of my expertise just to feel like I’m doing something.

Depends on the value of the pictures and how long you really need to keep them.

I’d probably set up a network attached server (NAS) with RAID 5. Would cost a few hundred and an afternoon.

It really depends. A lot of people make apps for like the sake of making an app. The real question is does it offer a benefit over a mobile website?

If no, don’t bother. You’re just decreasing user adoption.