Back up years of photos and videos to a server you own instead of relying on Google Photos or iCloud.
Share specific photo albums with family members while keeping everything private on your home network.
Search your entire photo library by faces, objects, location, and visual similarity without sending data to the cloud.
Run automatic background photo uploads from your phone whenever you open the app or connect to WiFi.
Requires running backend (NestJS), database, and mobile/web clients; self-hosted infrastructure setup is non-trivial.
Immich is a self-hosted photo and video management solution that aims to be a high-performance alternative to commercial cloud photo services. The topics list it as a Google Photos alternative. The everyday problem: most people have years of photos and videos on their phones, and the easy backup option is a third-party cloud service. Immich lets you run the backup and library service on a server you control instead, so the data stays in your home, on your hardware, while you still get an app experience comparable to a cloud product. How it works (per the README feature table): there is both a mobile app and a web interface. The mobile app uploads and views photos and videos, automatically backs up when opened, can run background backup, and lets you choose specific albums. The web interface adds administrative features such as user management and API keys. Both interfaces support multi-user accounts, shared albums, RAW formats, EXIF metadata with map view, search by metadata, objects, faces, and CLIP (a visual-search technique), facial recognition and clustering, Memories, public and partner sharing, a global map, OAuth login, LivePhoto and MotionPhoto playback, stacked photos, and tags. You would use Immich when you want a Google-Photos-like experience for a personal photo and video collection but you want full control over storage and privacy on a self-hosted server. The README warns to follow a 3-2-1 backup strategy regardless. The repository's primary language is TypeScript, and the topics list mentions Flutter for the mobile app and NestJS plus Node.js on the server. Licensed under AGPLv3.
Generated 2026-05-18 · Model: sonnet-4-6 · Verify against the repo before relying on details.