this post was submitted on 24 May 2024
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Hello everyone!

I'm currently looking to self host some photos to get my girlfriend off of Google Photos. I'm wondering what has been good in your experience.

I never thought about self-hosting the before but a LTT video (I'm sorry) popped up in my feed and I got curious.

I looked into Ente.io and PhotoSync so far but unsure if there are any better options. Also saw that LibrePhotos exist but I haven't looked into it yet.

What are you using? Have you had any issues? Missing features etc.?

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[–] [email protected] 82 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Immich is by far the best and most convenient.

[–] krdo 17 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

/end of thread

As we used to say.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 6 months ago (6 children)

+1 to immich

However, because of the fast dev cycle, it has a lot of breaking changes, and needs regular maintenance (most notably for me, postgres docker changes. Especially if you are not giving it it's own postgres instance and using their provided docker compose.)

You could stay pegged to a single version, but the mobile app also doesn't have full backwards compatibility with server versions, which results in a slew of other problems (how do I do a fresh install of an older app version on a new device?)

But if you are willing to keep up and perform semi-regular maintenance, immich is great, and the rapid dev cycle means more new features faster!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Luckily all of the changes so far have been super easy and quick, they're very good about posting detailed info on what to change.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

Thank you! I will try Immich our and see how it feels, if it's just quick fixes it shouldn't be an issue. But if it's too much I might just try out Ente 🙏

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

Can you make immich so that when you click on the map, you get a grid of relevant photos rather than full size swipe?

Can you make immich not show the stupid white lines around every country?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

This is a fair description.

My parents like it, once every so often I update their docker and apps (on the same day). Its not always straight forward (I just mean you have to visit their github), but ez enough.

Unfortunately my next choice (afaik) would be NextCloud ... aaaand let's leave it at that.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

how do I do a fresh install of an older app version on a new device?

You can directly use the files from the github repo, just look for the release your server is on and install that apk.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

I'm scared to these 'breaking changes' even though I'm not exactly a self hosting newbie. That's because I don't have a proper 3-2-1 backup and I'm afraid I might lose my photos or settings. I've been exploring of setting up immich through a homeserver management tool like runtipi that allows taking backups separately that can be reverted to, in case something goes wrong. Anyone aware of any negatives about that?

[–] [email protected] 24 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Everyone seems to love immich, but I found the rapid development cycle combined with the version incompatibilities annoying.

Ente is seeming like a nice alternative so far and will hopefully be lower maintenance.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I think Immich has grown out of the most difficult upgrades now. Most changes now are just removing lines from the stack.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

It wasn't that the upgrades were hard so much as it felt like everytime I tried to open the app on my phone, it errored out because either it or the server needed to be upgraded and the versions weren't compatible.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 6 months ago
[–] [email protected] 22 points 6 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Immich! Am still testing it, but it seems to have most features I need, like an iOS client with automatic backups and even server side face recognition ( your server naturally)

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 months ago (3 children)

I use Photoprism, mainly because it seems stable so far, and it's good enough for my needs

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Ditto, though I'm getting more and more resentful by the day at the lack of multi user support. I'm not going to donate to them again.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, this is why I jumped ship to Immich last year. I was donating to PP, with the understanding that donating users would get access to multi-user features when they happened.

Then they put them behind a paid recurring subscription. For self-hosted users. That move broke all the trust with me.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

They fucking what? I need to get off the couch and cancel my support too

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Yep - they introduced paid subscription tiers and put multi-user support into those: https://www.photoprism.app/editions#compare

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

Same here, Been using photoprism past few years also, loving it so far!! Few quirks but constantly being worked on

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

Same, just use FolderSync to get photos to it. Works like a cham.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago

Thank you all for the responses! I will take look into Immich and if maintenance is too much of a hassle I might try out Ente!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago

Immich all the way my dude.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago

Definitely check this summary out: https://meichthys.github.io/foss_photo_libraries/. Everyone's use case and priorities will be a little different, but I'd vote for Immich as a Google Photos replacement that looks nice and is very easy to use. I was awestruck by the facial and object recognition, which wasn't even a feature I particularly cared about.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago
[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (3 children)

I'm a noob, I started 2 months ago with immich and tailscale. Now I have an unraid server, it's a slippery slope.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

I-fucking-mmich!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (8 children)

Another question: I set up the Immich docker image and I'm using Mullvad VPN, however Mullvad VPN removed in-app port forwarding last year. I'm curious whether there is a solution to use Split Tunneling for Immich via another VPN to setup secure remote access outside of the home network?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (2 children)

https://github.com/immich-app/immich/discussions/8299

I just got this working today and can say it's quite an elegant solution. It means anyone with a Google account (that I allow through Cloudflare settings) can take advantage of immich. I plan to be the storage server for my family so they can have automatic photo backups.

If you decide to go that route and have questions, hit me up. I spent a while troubleshooting issues caused by not creating a SaaS application in Cloudflare, so read the directions exactly.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

PIA allows split tunneling in their app

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I tried Immich but did not like it, its also been sold so who know what will happen there. I have been using Nextcloud and loving it

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (3 children)

It wasn't sold, it's being funded. There's a big difference. And the group behind the funding is a huge supporter of FOSS. They're gonna be "selling" immich licenses soon, but they're also going to keep all the source code open and available for anyone to download, modify, or use however they want.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

Fewer Letters More Letters
DNS Domain Name Service/System
IP Internet Protocol
PIA Private Internet Access brand of VPN
Plex Brand of media server package
VPN Virtual Private Network

[Thread #761 for this sub, first seen 25th May 2024, 22:55] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Depending on what exactly you're looking for, Photostructure might be a good option. It's got a great UI for viewing photos, and it's meant to play well with other Metadata software.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

I don't know why people recommend Immich. I found it to be the most bare-bone photo app I've ever used. It feels ten+ years old. I tried really hard to make it work but Plex photos is about 20% better and it still sucks.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I don't remember much about plex photos, but facial (and object) recognition, photo map, easy sharing through albums (without the other person needing an account), and being open source are some features I imagine plex photos does not have.

it seems barebones still, because it is a very young app, and the UI is not great, especially on mobile.

It is the best replacement for Google photos that I have seen though.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Fair enough. Plex may not have the bells and whistles but it's simple and intuitive to use. I've also tried the QuMagie app on my QNAP which does have all those features but found it to be a bit more cumbersome than it was worth.

I tried Google Photos briefly as well and was very shocked at how bad it is, compared to Apple Photos. It took me several days just to figure out how to delete more than one picture at a time. I have to assume it's much more robust on an Android than on an iPhone but even their web interface was horrible.

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