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Self-hosting my photos with Immich

michael.stapelberg.ch

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Re: Self-hosting my photos with Immich

#141

Post by xiconfjs »

fsh wrote: post #108

My biggest worry with Immich is how to future-proof the albums. With photos sorted into folders, it should be no problem to access them in a couple of decades. With Immich, I have to rely on the software still working or finding some kind of tool to dump the database.

I have the same concerns and that’s why I only use software which accept my directory structure as input and isn’t messing with it. I, for example, added my top directories of my image directory structure hand by hand each bit itself as a shared directory (read-only) to immich.

The main reason: I don’t trust software NOT deleting my photos. (Yes, I have an off-site) backup, but the restore would take time.

Re: Self-hosting my photos with Immich

#142

Post by dontlaugh »

vachina wrote: post #65
halapro wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does your phone silently and reliably upload all the photos to your server? My guess you're conceding on that part. How's the offline app support? My full library (30k items) is available on my phone (not in high res). There are a lot more concessions I'm sure.

I’d gladly trade manual but bulletproof sync over paying a fee forever for essentially… storing files on drives. We got to this stage of having to sync because Apple can’t stand putting more storage on client devices.

More device storage wouldn’t help. I couldn’t fit all of my pictures on any phone sold today.

Re: Self-hosting my photos with Immich

#143

Post by socksy »

fsh wrote: post #108

My biggest worry with Immich is how to future-proof the albums. With photos sorted into folders, it should be no problem to access them in a couple of decades. With Immich, I have to rely on the software still working or finding some kind of tool to dump the database.

The database is Postgres, and the schema is quite sensible. You can (and I have) write normal SQL queries in psql to modify the data.

It might not be as easy as rsync to transfer data out, but I would trust it way more than some of the folder based systems I've had with local apps that somehow get corrupted/modified between their database and the local filesystem. And I don't think ext4 is somehow magically more futureproof than Postgres. And if no-one else writes an export tool, and you feel unable to, your local friendly LLM will happily read the schema and write the SQL for you.

Re: Self-hosting my photos with Immich

#144

Post by javier2 »

WD-42 wrote: post #4

Self hosting used to mean conceding on something. I can honestly say Immich is better in every way than Google Photos or whatever Apple calls it. The only thing is having to set it up yourself.

For the record, I think Immich is very good, and I use it myself. But there is something about the design and performance in the mobile app that still makes it feel "not quite there yet" on iOS at least.

Re: Self-hosting my photos with Immich

#145

Post by sva_ »

Jnr wrote: post #117
nightski wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get the appeal of Tailscale for simple homelab use. I have OpenVPN and it's trivial. Hit the toggle and I'm connected, no fuss.

OpenVPN is far from "no fuss", especially when compared to Tailscale. I like to self host things so I also self host Headscale (private tailnet) and private derp proxy nodes (it is like TURN). Since derp uses https and can run on 443 using SNI I get access to my network also at hotels and other shady places where most of the UDP and TCP traffic is blocked. Tailscale ACL is also great and requires more work to achieve…

Why not just use wireguard directly? The configuration is fairly trivial

Re: Self-hosting my photos with Immich

#146

Post by palata »

WD-42 wrote: post #67
halapro wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does your phone silently and reliably upload all the photos to your server? My guess you're conceding on that part. How's the offline app support? My full library (30k items) is available on my phone (not in high res). There are a lot more concessions I'm sure.

Yes, it does silently and reliably upload all my photos to my server. That's like, the entire selling point of the app? You even have control over how and when (on wifi or not) and the ability to change hostnames depending on what network you are on. And yes I can browse my entire collection back to 2001 no problem. I have no idea what the offline support is.

That was my selling point for Nextcloud, and it turns out it doesn't work reliably. It works most of the time, but for backing up photos it's not enough, and when it fails it's super annoying (you have to resync EVERYTHING from scratch).

People seem very happy about Immich, I'm tempted to try. But people seem very about Nextcloud as well, so it's difficult to tell.

Re: Self-hosting my photos with Immich

#147

Post by AdrianB1 »

teekert wrote: post #133
wwarek wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do you update the software in the containers when new versions come out or vulnerabilities are actively being exploited? You build new image with updated/patched versions of packages and then replace your vulnerable container with a new one, created from new image

Am I the only one surprised that this is a serious discussion in 2025?

Perhaps. There are many people, even in the IT industry, that don't deal with containers at all; think about the Windows apps, games, embedded stuff, etc. Containers are a niche in the grand scheme of things, not the vast majority like some people assume.

Re: Self-hosting my photos with Immich

#148

Post by palata »

andrew_eu wrote: post #92
halapro wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does your phone silently and reliably upload all the photos to your server? My guess you're conceding on that part. How's the offline app support? My full library (30k items) is available on my phone (not in high res). There are a lot more concessions I'm sure.

The sync really is quite good. On wifi it's basically seamless. If I had 30k new images though it would be much faster to use the immich-go tool mentioned in the blog post. Offline support is alright, though I haven't worried about this much. I think it doesn't do any local deletion, so whatever stays in your DCIM folder is still on device.

> The sync really is quite good.

Do you have to ever open the app though? On iOS/Android?

In my case I would need it to run on the phones of my family members, and they probably will never open the app.

Re: Self-hosting my photos with Immich

#150

Post by palata »

petesergeant wrote: post #53
WD-42 wrote: post #4

Self hosting used to mean conceding on something. I can honestly say Immich is better in every way than Google Photos or whatever Apple calls it. The only thing is having to set it up yourself.

Other than redundant hosting, what will I get as an Apple user by setting this up? It would be very easy to set up, just not sure what I’m gaining from it

Supporting someone who is not TooBigTech is a valid concern, IMO.

The selling point for me is that it is NOT TooBigTech. It doesn't have to be as good as TooBigTech, but it has to be reliable enough. In my case it means that it should be able to sync from iOS/Android, in the background, even if the user never opens the app, and it should never get out of sync and require setting up everything again. Nextcloud fails at that.

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