[Feature]: Sorting for albums

[bo0tzz]

Feature detail

It would be nice to have a sort option for the albums view. Google Photos currently provides three such options:

• Most recent photo - Album with the newest photo first
• Last modified - Most recently modified album first
• Album title - Alphabetical

It would also be nice to have similar sorting options inside of albums (and possibly on the main photos feed) - things like:

• Age (oldest/newest first)
• Most recently added first
• Type (photos or videos first)

Platform

Web

[matthinc]

First album sorting options will be included in one of the next mobile releases.

[alextran1502]

I think this is done, correct?

[scottrbaxter]

Can you better explain what you mean by done? Running server v1.92.1 with iOS v1.92.0 - If i open any album, i see no sorting options on mobile or in the webapp. Photos themselves appear to be automatically sorted newest to oldest. For albums, this really doesn't make sense. All of my albums are meant to be shared sequentially, (my typical album is several hundred photos over a single day), and I simply cannot find a way to sort "oldest to newest" with Immich. I've looked through github issues and also some of the code base, it seems there was a time when sorting was "oldest to newest" to some degree, but was changed a while back, correct? Then there appeared to be a code refactor, and I haven't back tracked exactly where that setting went, or how it's been refactored.

Given all of the amazing features already provided in this photo solution, I have a tough time believing that sorting photos "oldest to newest" in albums does not exist, but I simply cannot find the setting to do so... or better yet, include a setting for the "default sort method", for media in all albums.

[Parsiuk]

Manual photos order would be nice to have as well.

[ok-kenji]

At this time, this is the only thing keeping me from moving into Immich full time. Being able to build a 'story' from images captured out of order is a must-have feature for Albums.

[motrengaw]

My use case for IMMICH is a secure and private image share for friends and family--emphasis on sharing. Manual--ideally drag-and-drop--ordering is vital to this as both I and my F&F will want to manipulate the "story line" of Album events. I've purchased, as the build so far is clean and impressive, and UI will be easily grasped by F&F. All that is lacking is Album sort options for me, particularly drag-and-drop a la Google/Picasa. Taking it on faith that this obvious but no doubt challenging-to-implement feature is a priority. Thanks!!

[chris400]

dfntly!
"Custom" is one of my high priorities

@alextran1502 would you mind chiming in? Esp. as you put a comment in here yourself stating that this feature might be completed. Which I slightly disagree with :)

[haayman]

I've scanned a lot of slides, so the exif dates are incorrect. Therefore I'd like to be able to sort it manually

[chris400]

There is a dedicated feature request for manual re-ordering. You might want to place your vote there
#2208

[waclaw66]

A bug on mobile. While adding photos to the album the order of albums is from oldest to the recent one (at the end). Shared photos dropdown above shows them correctly.

[malconsei]

When ordering albums by "Most recent photo", web app 1.75.1 seems to sort by lastModifiedAssetTimestamp which in turn may come from the db field assets.fileModifiedAt - or anyway, today I geotagged and uploaded some very old pictures and their albums are right on top.

I think the common expectation is to sort by file creation date. Would it be possible to change the feature this way?

[malconsei]

@klejejs I believe you developed the feature, could you chip in?

[klejejs]

Yes, that is the case. For the web, I copied the options from GPhotos - "last modified" and "album title" come from album data, but "most recent photo" checks assets in the album from DB and sorts albums by asset date.

[klejejs]

There is actually a PR for mobile already, but there is no progress on it :(
#3804

[malconsei]

Sorry for disappearing, I had put my experiments with immich on hold. I still think that the "most recent photo" should refer to the date it was taken and not modified/postprocessed.
I temporarily mitigated the problem for my collection with an update assets set "fileModifiedAt" = "fileCreatedAt"; in the db, though I expect some jobs to overwrite it at some point. (For other users: Please don't try unless you know what you're doing, and backup your db first :) )

[chk86]

@bo0tzz just closed #4735 as a duplicate of this feature request, so I want to clarify: is adding sorting options inside individual albums still planned? Otherwise, I will create a separate request so this doesn't get lost.

[bo0tzz]

Yes, sorting inside albums is also covered by this request.

[scottrbaxter]

@bo0tzz For the time being, any chance there's an easy way to invert the current sorting method so that albums can be viewed by "oldest to newest" date? looking back through the project's history and I believe this used to be the default, but was changed to be more consistent elsewhere. I've tried to follow through where this is being set, but with refactoring over time it seems that the corresponding files have been heavily modified. A sorting solution (and the option to choose a default sorting method) would be great at some point, but right now I simply need photos in albums to be sorted ascending/sequentially by date. So far (I'm fairly new) Immich seems absolutely wonderful... thanks to all the devs who've put in work, it's really a great photo/video solution!

[Salindris]

Seeing as this is open since 2022, would it be possible to add a small workaround until this feature is implemented: just invert the current sort order, doesn't have to be configurable or anything. Albums will be viewed from oldest to newest photo 99.9% of the time so it would essentially solve most people's issue without having to code a configuration mechanism or anything.

[roserez]

I need this badly to. Just a reverse sort order. I'll hard code it for now if possible. I just need photos to display in forward chronological order. Reverse is worthless to me and confuses people. Does anyone have a patch?

[scottrbaxter]

I'm in the same situation. This software looks incredible and I can't wait to use it, but photos within albums having no way to be displayed in sequential order really is a deal breaker for all of my use cases. i'm hoping someone with a bit more context can recommend a solution, even as a temporary fix, until this feature can be fully implemented as intended.

[Soukyuu]

Please don't force sorting to oldest first. This breaks it for everyone who uses it as a photo backup solution, which may or may not be the majority. I'm as annoyed about not being able to set the sorting by default, but I'd be equally as annoyed for my main use case to break.

[lobotomm]

I am one more user who hopes that the album sort order gets reverted: oldest to newest seems to be right for 99,9%!

[Soukyuu]

Please don't force sorting to oldest first. This breaks it for everyone who uses it as a photo backup solution, which may or may not be the majority. I'm as annoyed about not being able to set the sorting by default, but I'd be equally as annoyed for my main use case to break.

[Pazu5512]

Agreed, as a photo album tells a story, I think the default sorting option should be from oldest to newest.

With the holy grail being this, ordering photos however we want
Ordering.webm

While it's mostly the case, a story is not always told from oldest to newest. Sometimes a photo you took a few minutes later is better appearing first. Maybe because the one you originally took had other people on it, or the light wasn't the best, and 10 minutes later, the conditions were better and thus you went back and took a new pic. For which a simple "older to newer" sort option wouldn't be sufficient to cover this case, and thus ruin the story you wanted to tell.

[aviv926]

Feature detail

It would be nice to have a sort option for the albums view. Google Photos currently provides three such options:

• Most recent photo - Album with the newest photo first
• Last modified - Most recently modified album first
• Album title - Alphabetical

Added to Immich.

It would also be nice to have similar sorting options inside of albums (and possibly on the main photos feed) - things like:

• Age (oldest/newest first)

Added with #7819.

• Most recently added first
• Type (photos or videos first)

[roserez]

Thank you!!!!

[aviv926]

Thank you!!!!

The thanks are not to me, but to the development team ✌️

[lobotomm]

The new sorting album function seems only to work in the web view. Album order in app persists newest to oldest, no matter what I do in the web view.

[aviv926]

Yes, as stated in the new release 1.99 it currently supports the WEB version only.

[lobotomm]

I understand. I thought I can set the order in the web view and it stays that way in the app.

[chris114782]

I've just tried this for the first time, and the changes to ordering don't persist to shared links to the album.

If I set the order from oldest to newest, when I open the shared link to the album the web UI shows it in newest to oldest still.

[ok1ok1]

Please include a timeline view for albums on mobile. This will be especially beneficial if the upcoming automation features allow for "smart" albums.

[jstebenne]

Would this include ordering the pictures within an album using the original file names?

I am scanning a bunch of old photos and can easily order them with their file name while I am scanning. When I import those photos in Immich, the order currently seems random.

[bkiscool]

I would also like to see sorting by file names.

I have an album where photos are intended to be sorted by file name, but they are out of order because I can only change the display order by date created.

[Soukyuu]

As @bkiscool says, I have a lot of albums in an external library which are basically trip reports. Sometimes I keep the jpg that comes out of the camera which then has a correct date taken, sometimes I have to process the raw file to get a better result. This however changes the "date taken", breaking the sorting. Sometimes also the EXIF data is missing completely (Yi 4k Camera).

What I do is rename the files with a numeric prefix to "fix" the display order instead of manually copying the date taken.

So the easiest sorting way for me would be "by filename". Though manual sorting by drag&drop would also be nice.

[piemanabc]

100% agree here, I primarily use Immich to view/store comics, and this is the last pain point for me. Importing these into albums is done automatically with something like this which unfortunately means that albums are created in bulk, causing the images within to be added in a random order.

an option for filename in a human readable format would be a game changer. When I say human readable I mean the order should be:

1.jpg, 3.jpg, 4.jpg, 10.jpg, 13.jpg. 21.jpg, 22.jpg

and not:

10.jpg, 13.jpg. 1.jpg, 21.jpg, 22.jpg, 3.jpg, 4.jpg

which seems to sort by the first character, and the length of the name? I've seen this with other image sorting/management software and it's effectively useless for my application.

[jomir1000]

a custom sorting method for albums would be really really nice... it could be as basic as an (editable) atribute "rank" for each pic. (sort by rank, then date)...

[corvy]

If you have the time to fork and run with it, why not make a PR and suggest the improvement here? Separating into a fork makes no sense to me.

[marshalleq]

My thinking is that it's a directional challenge. I get the feeling that whoever is leading this was more interested in make a storage location for their photos to replace google photos - which is a fair thing to want to do. But I don't think there's really an appetite to take it to a bit more of a photo management application at present. I've sort of been biding my time a bit at the moment due to other things on, but the time may well come. But if the team is keen on taking it into a direction where stories can be told through photos and some basic management things like even just a rotate photo option OMG, I couldn't believe it when I saw that was missing.

[SpeeterYT]

I really feel like we need a month of wth or similar

[marshalleq]

WTH?

[SpeeterYT]

https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2024/11/30/the-month-of-what-the-heck/

[corvy]

I agree to this last part, but again I am more leaning to voicing and contribute rather than forking off.

[marshalleq]

I agree, forking is the worst outcome, but if there are deaf ears no amount of yelling will change anything. I'm not ready, so they have that time I guess. And I also don't know what the sentiment is around here regarding it, certainly there are a few or us that have been requesting things things for some time now - this was logged in July 2022! Anyone know if there's a roadmap or anything? it'd be good to know if there is any actual vision that is supposedly being worked to and everything is just stalled, or if there's no vision and agreement to go anyway, the former be bad but understandable for a free commitment, the latter being worse and probably explains more of what we're seeing.

[photoserver-pro]

I think this is the core question here: what is the target audience and intended purpose of the Immich project?

When I discovered Immich about four weeks ago, the website messaging was very clear:
• organize your photos
• manage your photos
• browse your photos
• search your photos

I’ve been using Lightroom since 2005, ran Piwigo for the last ~8 years, and also have extensive hands-on experience with QNAP QuMagie. In that context, capabilities like sorting and faceted/filter navigation are absolute baseline requirements (more context on filtering here: #24754 (comment)).

Right now I’m genuinely torn on whether Immich is the right long-term solution for my 600k+ family photo archive. Having large, flat lists of photos without being able to reliably filter and sort them is poor UX—and in practice becomes hard to use.

I’m not a developer, but I do bring ~20 years of professional e-commerce and search experience, and in that world sorting and filtering are foundational UX building blocks.

I’d really appreciate a better understanding of where Immich is heading in terms of product direction and priorities, so I can assess whether it makes sense to invest more time and resources (I’ve already built a dedicated hardware setup for testing) into adopting Immich.

[vectorjohn]

I see that albums already support sorting by "newest first" or "oldest first". Whatever field that is based on (file creation, date added, modified, etc), it's just toggling the direction.
I think what would solve all these conundrums is to change that from just a direction to a "mode" and a direction. I.e.
sort by: "date added" / "date created" / "date modified"
direction: "ascending" / "descending" (or oldest/newest first if people prefer that terminology.

I think this change would easily set things up to support manual sorting, which should be a different feature request because it would require changing other tables and a whole lot more UI work. But what that would look like is one more sort mode, "manual". And then each of the asset_album database links would also contain a sort order for each photo. That would get updated by manual drag and drop.
The complicated part comes when toggling between date based and manual sorting, what do we do with the existing order, etc. That's another reason it's more complicated.

But just adding more sort modes (sorting by different fields) should be a starting point. I'm willing to work on it. I've looked at the database code and some services and it looks reasonably easy, but I haven't dug really deep in there yet to know.

[teconomix]

I want to second the feature request towards manual sorted albums. That is of utmost importance to me. I often take pictures in workshops and need to sort them afterwards to represent the results of the workshops.

It would be great to also have text in between to mark separate parts of the workshop, just like in google fotos.

[chris400]

There is a dedicated feature request for manual re-ordering. You might want to place your vote there
#2208

[millercentral]

Our use case for custom ordering for albums is scanned photos. We have recently scanned/archived a large amount of old family photos and these scans don't have real metadata in terms of date taken etc. We want to share these photos to family members, manually ordering the pictures in an album around specific people/events/etc, but messing with the metadata of each photo individually is not a viable solution. This would be a very impactful feature to us.

[chris400]

There is a dedicated feature request for manual re-ordering. You might want to place your vote there
#2208

[Soukyuu]

Because you're not paying them to implement it. You want it? Submit a PR. Nobody needs entitled whining.

[Merlin-2504]

Unfortunately, posts and comments seem to get deleted quite often. That’s a shame, because it makes a real discussion difficult.
Of course, we should always keep in mind that many people involved with Immich contribute their time and effort voluntarily. That absolutely deserves respect and appreciation.
At the same time, feedback, criticism, and suggestions from real-world users are important. Our experiences and observations can also help improve Immich and move the project forward.

[bo0tzz]

Nothing is being deleted. Some comments that are low quality/off-topic/redundant get hidden (but can still be viewed just fine) so the thread doesn't get cluttered.