immich: Self-Host Photo and Video Management

Overview

Immich is a self-hosted photo and video management system with mobile and web apps. It brings library backup, browsing, sharing, and organization together, offering an alternative for people who want to manage their own media rather than rely solely on a hosted photo service.

It is designed for individuals and households with growing media libraries, as well as administrators who need multi-user access. Running it yourself means you are responsible for deployment, storage, and protecting the library with separate backups.

Key Features

• Back up photos and videos from mobile devices, including background and album-selective backup.
• Browse and organize media in albums, folders, favorites, archives, and tags.
• Search by metadata, objects, faces, and CLIP, with facial recognition and clustering.
• View EXIF and map information, and browse the library on a global map.
• Share albums and individual items publicly or with partners.
• Support multiple users, OAuth, and administrator-managed accounts.
• Handle RAW formats, LivePhotos and MotionPhotos, and 360-degree images on web.
• Access a read-only gallery, with offline support in the mobile app.

Use Cases

• Families can back up phones to a shared library and create albums for trips or events.
• People replacing a hosted photo library can self-host their collection and use mobile and web browsing tools.
• Photographers can organize mixed photo and video libraries, including RAW files, and inspect image metadata.
• A self-hosting administrator can provide separate accounts and shared albums for household members.

Getting Started

Consult the official installation requirements and guides for deployment instructions. The README links to documentation and a live demo.

Alternatives

• Lychee: Lychee is a web-focused photo manager for uploading, organizing, and sharing, while Immich also offers mobile apps and photo backup workflows.
• afilmory: Afilmory presents photographer-focused galleries synced from storage, with EXIF, maps, and a WebGL viewer, rather than Immich's backup-centered library.

Considerations

• Self-hosting requires a server and storage, and you are responsible for maintaining the installation and safeguarding the media.
• The project explicitly recommends following a 3-2-1 backup plan. A self-hosted library should not be treated as the only copy of valuable photos and videos.
• The repository uses the AGPL-3.0 license, which has obligations to review when modifying or distributing the software.
• The README documents an active feature set spanning mobile and web, but feature availability differs by platform. For example, tags and administrative functions are listed for web, while offline support is listed for mobile.