services:immich
wiki.gardiol.org
Immich is a modern photo management web application which aims to be similar to Google Photo. It can be uses to backup phone photos and also manage older collection of older photos.

Hi fellow self-hoster.

Almost one year ago i did experiment with Immich and found, at the time, that it was not up to pair to what i was expecting from it. Basically my use case was slightly different from the Immich user experience.

After all this time i decided to give it another go and i am amazed! It has grown a lot, it now has all the features i need and where lacking at the time.

So, in just a few hours i set it up and configured my external libraries, backup, storage template and OIDC authentication with authelia. All works.

Great kudos to the devs which are doing an amazing work.

I have documented all the steps of the process with the link on top of this post, hope it can be useful for someone.

  • Ulrich@feddit.orgEnglish
    1·
    2 months ago

    Yeah, I don’t know what any of these words mean. I just want to click “export” and back all the data up to a flash drive. Is that too much to ask?

    • Shimitar@downonthestreet.euOPEnglish
      2·
      2 months ago

      I think it is. It doesn’t take much to understand which folders needs to be backed up. They are also pretty clear on the immich website on how to backup the database itself. No, just an “export” wouldn’t be good enough since the files themselves do not include the metadata.

      • Ulrich@feddit.orgEnglish
        1·
        2 months ago

        I think it is.

        Why is that?

        They are also pretty clear on the immich website on how to backup the database itself

        Yeah I’m pretty tired of hearing things are “pretty clear” or “not that complicated” and then being directed to an absolute word salad of technical terms no one without a computer science degree would understand.

        No, just an “export” wouldn’t be good enough since the files themselves do not include the metadata.

        They could…add them?

    • bdonvr@thelemmy.clubEnglish
      1·
      2 months ago

      Well yeah you could go on the site and select whatever photos and hit download I suppose.

      • Ulrich@feddit.orgEnglish
        1·
        2 months ago

        There’s no way to do that for your entire library. Also I assume that would not retain the Immich-specific metadata like the ML object tags and the “people” tagged in the photos.

        • bdonvr@thelemmy.clubEnglish
          11·
          2 months ago

          You should have a backup solution for your server that should cover this, without that you should probably stick with managed photo backup services.

          • Ulrich@feddit.orgEnglish
            1·
            2 months ago

            You should have a backup solution for your server that should cover this

            Thats…why I’m asking?

            managed photo backup services

            …is that not what Immich is?

            • bdonvr@thelemmy.clubEnglish
              1·
              2 months ago

              Are you paying for Immich somewhere? Then you’d have to trust the administrator to back your data up. I had assumed you were self hosting and by managed services I meant like Google Photos, or indeed someone else’s Immich setup.

              • Ulrich@feddit.orgEnglish
                1·
                2 months ago

                Are you paying for Immich somewhere?

                No.

                by managed services I meant like Google Photos

                Not doing that for reasons that shouldn’t need explaining.

                • bdonvr@thelemmy.clubEnglish
                  11·
                  2 months ago

                  If you’re self hosting then you could just copy all the files from your server onto an external drive. I have to say that’s not a great backup solution though, and you should learn more about administration of Linux servers so that when things break you can fix them. I wouldn’t rely on it as a safe solution to your photos otherwise.

                  • Ulrich@feddit.orgEnglish
                    1·
                    2 months ago

                    I’m not looking to become a sysadmin, thanks. I just want somewhere to safely store and organize my private photos.

                    I don’t know how to access the filesystem and copying the library folders would not back up the metadata.

                    A great backup solution would be what I mentioned elsewhere. Just put a button to export it to a flash drive or an encrypted file server.