Immich – High performance self-hosted photo and video management

Posted by rzk 5 days ago

Immich – High performance self-hosted photo and video management(github.com)

559 points | 205 commentspage 3

MrContent04 4 days ago|

Immich looks like the first real alternative to Google Photos that doesn’t feel like a toy project. For a lot of us, self-hosting isn’t just about privacy — it’s about not being locked out of 10+ years of memories if a company decides to pivot or shut down.

poidos 5 days ago||

I would love to self-host this stuff (using Immich, or Ente) but my family's bus factor is 1 and the risk of losing all the pictures really prevents me from taking this step. Sure, maybe my wife could reach out to my techie friends but why create the problem in the first place?

hamdingers 5 days ago||

The solution is packaging.

My Immich server performs a nightly backup to a 2tb flash drive labelled "PHOTOS" attached to the router. My partner knows where it is and what it's for, and everyone knows how to use a flash drive.

poidos 5 days ago|||

Are you rotating flash drives and such? I would worry about something happening to me, then she goes to use the flash drive, and the data is corrupt or the drive is fried.

sheerun 5 days ago|||

This. It is true science how to preserve data long-term. And if you want to encrypt it (e2e or not), you better have very good plan how to recover it when you die

hamdingers 4 days ago|||

Nope. I recognize it's a risk, but it still seems like the solution with the least compromises and the highest probability of success.

My server sends me notifications for every update with the rsync output so I'll know if any problems arise while I'm around. The last drive in this position lasted 4 years without incident, and I only replaced it earlier this year because it was full.

Modified3019 4 days ago|||

Is there a way to export things like notes to a sidecar file? Basically need to have photo123.jpg and photo123.jpg_notes.txt available.

I’m trying to archive, document and make accessible family photos, but fear any work I do organizing information in immich may as well be throwing it into black hole.

hamdingers 4 days ago||

I'm comfortable trading some metadata for a foolproof handoff of the assets themselves. The library is organized in year/month/day folders so it's navigable that way.

I back up the complete Immich filesystem and database, and include a docker-compose.yml, so if it was handed to someone technically inclined they'd have all that.

threetonesun 4 days ago|||

A middle ground worth considering is keeping iCloud as is, as the functional backup your family knows how to use, and Immich as a backup for that.

CryptoBanker 5 days ago|||

If you can't backup your essential local data then self hosting isn't really ever an option for you

poidos 5 days ago||

It's not about backing up. It's about non-technical family members being able to reliably recover the data.

kaffekaka 5 days ago||

What solution are you using now?

I feel the same, so I keep photos on hard drives and usb drives in different locations. I have a Restic backup at Backblaze but that is where the bus factor comes in. I don't know what would be best.

poidos 5 days ago||

Just iCloud for now.

Liftyee 5 days ago||

This serves as a great reminder for me to set up Immich when I get time, and a reason/excuse to purchase a better GPU. I have been uneasy with my dependence on Google for a while now.

[EDIT]: the following was intended as a reply to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45168333

I understand the author's point against the perceived complexity of 1-5 star rating systems, but it's worthy of note that star ratings are extremely common (ubiquitous?) in more advanced photo management/editing software such as Darktable and Lightroom. As a photographer, I see why the feature might have been included.

aidenn0 5 days ago|

Does Immich have features that need a high-end GPU? I hosted it on a machine with a 1050Ti, and see others in this comment section mentioning using a RPi.

LeFantome 5 days ago|||

Mine is running as a container on an old Mac Pro 2013 (running Proxmox). My GPU is not even as good as yours.

It runs great.

The “beta timeline” required hashing that took forever but this was on my wife’s iPhone and nothing to do with the back-end (she has 50,000 photos).

The machine-learning stuff uses the GPU. Facial recognition for example. It takes longer on low-end hardware but I am not sure why that is a problem.

tracker1 4 days ago||||

The image categorization can use GPU acceleration, many seem to be noting it runs well enough on CPU mode even on modest hardware, but importing say hundreds of gigs may take longer for classification (ingress) steps.

jazzyjackson 4 days ago|||

It runs great in a container on my synology NAS which has no GPU at all.

its-kostya 4 days ago||

Years ago I've passed on Immich because it was "prone to breakage" and went with a directory organization and syncthing for syncing. I still see immich doesn't have a stable release which is a bummer, although people report it is quite stable. I'm glad I went with the organization method I did. I do a lot more pruning of photos and less hoarding. I actually am able to view photos without getting "burnt out".

charles_f 3 days ago||

I had been on Flickr for 15y for personal photos hosting, and switched to immich a little over 2y ago, no looking back. The feature set is nice, and goes the right direction. A project I'm happy to support.

InfinityByTen 5 days ago||

I have been looking for such a thing for so long! Since this can be too much to develop from scratch I was hoping I could use Claude or something to start off on it.

I have gone for days in rage because Google photos would hog on memory and I had no folder view to know which pictures/videos were the culprit and I wouldn't get a folder view. If this works, I might spend some time working on this project, just to pay my regards.

rkagerer 4 days ago||

Is there any reason tagging isn't supported in the mobile app?

Also, the first two links Documentation and About both point to the same place.

NoboruWataya 5 days ago||

I have been using Nextcloud Photos because I already use Nextcloud to store all my photos. I have always been interested in Immich though. NC Photos has pretty much all the features I need (except maybe face recognition) but the performance isn't great.

Has anyone switched from NC Photos -> Immich and have any thoughts on the process (and how well Immich plays with NC if I keep my photos stored there)?

hagbard_c 4 days ago||

I switched from Nextcloud Photos to Nextcloud Memories to Immich. I submitted a patch [1] to Immich to make it possible to directly login via (Nextcloud) OIDC which, in combination with the Nextcloud 'External Sites' app makes it possible to integrate Immich directly into Nextcloud. I do not automatically add all photo and video material synced to Nextcloud into Immich yet, relying on a set of scripts I've been using for years to maintain all our media in a single repository. It should be possible to either use Nextcloud to sync media which is then shown in Immich through its 'External Libraries' feature (this is how I use it) as well as to use Immich to sync media and access it that way. No matter how it is used Immich can be integrated to be as easily accessible as any 'native' Nextcloud app. Performance is far better than Nextcloud Memories, this was my main reason for moving away from the latter. The search and facial recognition features in Immich do not require a server with GPU access, performance is fine on my by now rather aged DL380 G7.

[1] https://github.com/immich-app/immich/pull/18763/commits/fe7a...

hamdingers 5 days ago|||

Immich edges it out on people recognition and context search but otherwise similar in features. The Immich interface is much more like Google Photos and I find that to be better.

Regardless of where you're coming from I recommend migrating to Immich by "uploading" all your photos using the immich cli, and letting it manage the library.

eptcyka 5 days ago||

Nextcloud was dog slow for me, Immich just flies. And the client app is far better both on iOS and Android. Nextcloud never worked for my SO, Immich just does.

esel2k 5 days ago||

Its great however I still think they could simplify usage: - admin vs config menu - I always search in both - mounted folders vs backup folders: I would welcome a Simple Filter in the main view as I find the folder view ugly - Initial setup with all the jobs a big complicated

shadowpho 5 days ago|

Been running it and it’s a beauty! Runs great on a weak-ish mini pc with pictures via nfs on a NAS

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