Immich Storage and Safety
I'm ( as probably most of people in here at some point ) is looking for local alternative for Google Photos/Icloud.
The main questiong that's in my head is around the safety of Immich, the page says:
Do not use it as the only way to store your photos and videos, but seems preatty realiable from comments I seen - also, this server with 3k+ members already says smth tho.
I seen an comment on reddit about the way Immich stores photos that's not in-place, like PhotoPrism, and can be difficult to acess the photos.
I'm just wondering if I should or not trust the app, cause I did really liked it way better over the alernatives.10 Replies
:wave: Hey @GT,
Thanks for reaching out to us. Please carefully read this message and follow the recommended actions. This will help us be more effective in our support effort and leave more time for building Immich :immich:.
References
- Container Logs:
docker compose logs docs
- Container Status: docker ps -a docs
- Reverse Proxy: https://immich.app/docs/administration/reverse-proxy
- Code Formatting https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/210298617-Markdown-Text-101-Chat-Formatting-Bold-Italic-Underline#h_01GY0DAKGXDEHE263BCAYEGFJA
Checklist
I have...
1. :ballot_box_with_check: verified I'm on the latest release(note that mobile app releases may take some time).
2. :ballot_box_with_check: read applicable release notes.
3. :ballot_box_with_check: reviewed the FAQs for known issues.
4. :ballot_box_with_check: reviewed Github for known issues.
5. :ballot_box_with_check: tried accessing Immich via local ip (without a custom reverse proxy).
6. :ballot_box_with_check: uploaded the relevant information (see below).
7. :ballot_box_with_check: tried an incognito window, disabled extensions, cleared mobile app cache, logged out and back in, different browsers, etc. as applicable
(an item can be marked as "complete" by reacting with the appropriate number)
Information
In order to be able to effectively help you, we need you to provide clear information to show what the problem is. The exact details needed vary per case, but here is a list of things to consider:
- Your docker-compose.yml and .env files.
- Logs from all the containers and their status (see above).
- All the troubleshooting steps you've tried so far.
- Any recent changes you've made to Immich or your system.
- Details about your system (both software/OS and hardware).
- Details about your storage (filesystems, type of disks, output of commands like fdisk -l and df -h).
- The version of the Immich server, mobile app, and other relevant pieces.
- Any other information that you think might be relevant.
Please paste files and logs with proper code formatting, and especially avoid blurry screenshots.
Without the right information we can't work out what the problem is. Help us help you ;)
If this ticket can be closed you can use the /close command, and re-open it later if needed.
Successfully submitted, a tag has been added to inform contributors. :white_check_mark:hmm, unsure if I meant to do that
I guess just a disclaimer so you don’t hold anyone but yourself responsible but I am just guessing
I thought that aswell, but about how the files are stored, they are all loaded and mapped into postgree db or only their needed data for the server?
I'm mostly concerned abt losing the data as I'm unware how its handled
It means you should follow a backup strategy. Just running Immich isn't enough. You should back up Immich's folders and database dumps so in case the Immich instance itself breaks for some reason (never happened for me) then you will have a backup to restore from or to access your images and videos from
the database stores Immich related metadata. The images itself are stored in your upload directory's library folders and their sub folders
They can be accessed and backed up by any other tool than Immich in theory
So I can "Load folders of photos into" immich and itll store only the metadata, path, and other needed data for each picture in the db
Not that It'll copy the pictures into some doc db or inner mapping
That's cool then
Not directly
You could technically just put images in folders manually into the upload directory of Immich, but that shouldn't be done. Only Immich should add folders to this directory. Since Immich is setting up the directory structure. If you add pictures to that folder manually Immich doesn't know these pictures. You can use external libraries in Immich for that.
Photos in Immich should always be uploaded through Immich. They will then land in Immich's directory and can be read in a normal folder structures as normal files. This ensures that even if Immich ceases to exist in 50 years or so for whatever reason, you will still have normal access to your uploaded images.
If you want to have another folder on your servers file system that should be read only by Immich and of which your pics should be displayed in Immich (while adding photos to that folder with a normal file explorer) then use external libraries for that purpose.
Aight, makes sense