Hey Everyone Been trying to get through my backlog of "projects" and one was setting up Immich. I've managed to get the software setup on my TrueNas install and on my phone to back up images but now have hit a bit of a wall. After a bit of browsing and coming across responses like "Why would you want to do that?" I felt the warmth and safety of Bit-tech would be a safer place to ask Where are my images actually being stored. It looks like they are going into a single bucket in my Immich install folder. Does that mean if I nuke my install I lose everything? How do I change that path and access like on my NAS? I have some family members that will go in and retouch images on their computer and since the NAS is linked already it would be an easier way to just copy the file over. I was playing about with the path when I first installed and broker the install. I should have realised that I would probably need to update the database to repoint rather than assuming there was something in the pathway settings to automatically do that Setting up multiple users, I assume everything also goes into a single bucket rather than a bucket for their own photos? Basically I am aiming to have my family sync their phones to the server for backup and sharing. Having each user in a file in their own section would be quite nice. Some users (FIL and SIL mainly) have other cameras they would like to sync up. Being able to drop files from a laptop onto the NAS then have immich pick them up etc was also an aim Am I asking too much of Immich and there is a better way of doing things?
It goes into the same bucket different folders but you can't have a shared album, it is sperate on a per-user basis. Sounds like this is what you want. I wanted to do the opposite, having a shared family album with different users and their own access permissions (eg. read only or upload or not share some folders). Perhaps similar to your in-law's use case, I simply pointed Immich to the existing photos folders on my NAS. But having two user pointing to the same photo area (on the NAS) seems to generate twice the temporary indexing stuff. For question 1, make sure you set up everything before deleting stuff. You may find it easier to create a new bucket and re-upload your photos rather than move and edit links.
Cheers wyx! Kinda, Would have been nice to have everything filtering nicely into ---Person 1 ---- Photos | -- Videos ---Person 2 ---- Photos | -- Videos etc I guess I can set up a "shared media" bucket, give access to that and let Immich do it's thing then map the photo's from each person individual area being mindful of permissions etc. Haven't progressed far or deleted anything it pulled from my phone so still at the point that Nuking everything is an option.
Maybe owncloud/opencloud/nextcloud is more what you want if your primary use case is synchronising files and any edits to them across multiple devices? Client for phone, client for PC, user account for each, just synchronises. Think OneDrive / DropBox / Google Drive with the ability to do more than just photos, versus Immich's self-hosted iCloud Photos.
I'm afraid I don't know about how Immich backs up photos. I'm not using that feature. But at the same time, as long as it backs up stuff in some logical and readable order, it's okay? Trying to change how it places files may be difficult or even impossible. For custom photo location, I'm guessing this is what you are looking for? https://immich.app/docs/guides/custom-locations/ I'm using external libraries. My Synology NAS hosts all the photos (and runs their Photos app for personal backup in personal area and then a shared area across all users). I only use Immich to look into the shared photos folder and then use Immich search to find stuff. https://immich.app/docs/guides/external-library I think Immich is designed to be used like Google Photos. Each user is separate from the next. Only sharing is done via manually adding photos into shared album. You let Immich manage photo backups, just like Google photos, you only interact via the front-end. If I understand you correctly, this quoted part is similar to what I was trying to do with Immich via external library, but each user get their own index. 55 GB just for index per user for ~50k photos and ~4000 videos, totalling ~450GB (whole family's curated photo library all the way to digitised 50's photos). I initially had 2 users but indexing quickly filled up my 100 GB docker volume. External library across multiple users simply does not scale well.
Originally started out as backup of phones photos pretty much google photos alternative for me and the missus. After initial research and holding off until I got more spare time, the FIL since retired and dug out all the old DV8 tapes he recorded. The NAS would be a convenient place to store everything to rather than the scattered external hard drive approach he normally goes for. Since I was implementing Immich it was thinking it made sense to back the videos to a shared folder and use Immich as an easy management interface. Since his second retirement hobby is touring in the camper, backing up photos from their phone, drone footage and SLR images and letting them backup, manage and share what they want. I guess Immich has the option to upload from the interface as well which would be easier than getting them to set up a VPN to a shared folder remotely to upload stuff. Knowing him tho he will sometimes want to go back and "touch up" the occasional image. Similar idea for the SIL. She will occasionally go back and edit images for different things. I guess as Immich is uploading full res images and they can be downloaded from the it might be unnecessary to also have access through the NAS folder structure. I think not fully understanding what the underlying folder structure was doing and wondering where the heck my photos have went, not fully understanding how user accounts are handled and me trying to micromanage storage locations, even some of the documentation around ingesting other libraries and the limitations of google photos had me aiming for a solution that isn't totally necessary. NextCloud might still be a better option but honestly love the management Immich is providing so far.
