Upload and External library in same folder

[mariolav]

I'm a 73-year-old user of Immich and I'm very impressed with it for managing my media. I have a long history of photos and videos (over 40 years' worth) stored on an external volume. My main concern is preparing for a time when I might no longer be able to manage Immich myself, ensuring my family can easily access all these memories.

I've noticed that while my existing media is on an external volume, new uploads from my phone are going into a different, internally managed folder structure. I'm worried this will make it very difficult for my family to find these newer media files once I'm not around to guide them.

I have two main questions regarding this:

Is it possible to configure Immich so that all new media uploads (from my phone or other sources) go directly into my existing "External volume" folder, or a subfolder within it, to consolidate everything in one easily discoverable location?

If not, would it be a viable strategy to disable uploads within the Immich mobile app, and instead use a third-party application like PhotoSync (on my Android device) to directly sync my phone's media to my "External volume" folder? I would then use Immich primarily as a viewer and organizer for the media already in that external location.
Thanks,
Mario

[schuhbacca]

For your first point, no you cannot specify an external library as an upload location. There's an open feature request for it.

For your second point, yes that is a totally valid strategy.

[skatsubo]

Added my thoughts below. Does it make sense?

TLDR

Is it possible to configure Immich so that all new media uploads (from my phone or other sources) go directly into my existing "External volume" folder, or a subfolder within it, to consolidate everything in one easily discoverable location?

To consolidate all original images in one easily discoverable location I would do the following, briefly:

1. Put folder1 "existing media (external library)" and folder2 "uploaded media (internal library)" side by side in the top-level external volume folder.
2. For uploaded media use Storage Template to preserve original file names and have human friendly structure of folders.

Overview: existing media (external library) and uploaded media (internal library) side by side in the top-level external volume folder

Folder layout at host:

/mnt/extvol
├── media (external library with existing files)
│   ├── existing1
│   ├── ...
│   └── existingN
└── library (internal library with uploaded files)
    ├── YYYY/MM/... (example)
    └── ...

"Media" and "library" are two separate non-overlapping directories. Both are consolidated in the external volume folder /mnt/extvol for ease of access.

• Existing images are put/moved into "media".
• Immich puts uploaded images into "library" when Storage Template is configured.
• Nothing else in the top-level external volume "extvol".
• Other Immich folders, such as thumbnails, remain at their original location defined by ${UPLOAD_LOCATION}.

Then docker "bind mounts" will map this layout into Immich container.

• External library will point to /mnt/extvol/media.
• Internal library will point to /mnt/extvol/library (using custom locations, similar to https://immich.app/docs/guides/custom-locations).

Setup

1. Docker volume mounts for immich-server in docker-compose.yml.

Add two new entries to immich-server volume mounts in docker-compose.yml. 2nd and 3rd in the example below:

services:
  immich-server:
    volumes:
      - ${UPLOAD_LOCATION}:/usr/src/app/upload
      - /mnt/extvol/library:/usr/src/app/upload/library   # internal library
      - /mnt/extvol/media:/mnt/extvol/media               # external library
      - /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro

Apply with docker compose up -d as usual.

2. Storage Template.

Enable and configure Storage Template.
Run Storage Template Migration job if this is not a fresh setup and there are uploaded images already.

3. External library.

Create external library. Add import path /mnt/extvol/media.
Move existing assets into /mnt/extvol/media.
Then trigger "Scan" job from the external library settings page.

Note 1

Another approach - storing uploaded media (internal library) in a subfolder of existing media (external library) - is possible in theory. But then you need to configure exclusion patterns for this to work properly and avoid clashing/duplicate processing during external library rescan.

Host file system layout:

/mnt/extvol  (external library)
├── existing1
│   ├── ...
├── existingN
└── library (internal library)
    ├── YYYY/MM/... (example)
    └── ...

• External library path points to /mnt/extvol in container. It is mapped to /mnt/extvol on host.
• Internal library points to /mnt/extvol/library (using "custom locations").
• External library is configured with "ignore/exclusion" patterns to exclude /library/ from importing/scanning, this is mandatory. Exclusion patters will be similar to Asset is offline - but it is not #6845 (reply in thread), if I'm not mistaken.

This option is more fragile / error-prone, so let's skip it.

Note 2

My Immich workflow is like the second point you described.
While I wait/want for a better sharing (in particular, face sharing) I use Immich as a viewer and metadata editor. Photos are uploaded semi-automatically using Owncloud Android client or manually after processing in Digikam (face recognition and tagging, then export metadata to an XMP sidecar).

[ilopmar]

Wooow, this works amazingly great! TBH I never really understood how Storage Template works, but now I know, it's so powerful. I think the docs should be improved with real examples of the things you can do, like this example of keeping your uploaded pictures from your phone in your own directories with the desired folder structure.

I was doing something similar to what @mariolav explained. I have an external library with all the pictures from trips. This works great.
Then I have one external library for each family member. In our Android phones we use FolderSync app to sync the photos and videos we take with our phones to our NAS. Each one of us in a different folder like /photos/<username>/<year>. And every night those four external folder are scanned and the new pictures imported in Immich. This works but it's kind-of-a-pain.

I've been testing this approach that @skatsubo proposed in a test instance locally and this is exactly what I was looking for. Being able to upload the pictures directly from the phone or the web, but keep them in my own directory folders instead of in Immich ones.

The problem I have now is that our external libraries for our phones are 210GB and ~40K pictures (all four combined). I'm not sure I'll be able to "convert" them to this new upload approach. I've taken a look at the database, specially at the assets table, and the information is stored different for an external library file vs an uploaded one. I've duplicated the same file in both upload and external library to compare them but they are too different.

I was wondering if there is a way I can migrate them from an external library to look like they were uploaded, just modifying some data in the database. I don't mind write sql or some code (I'm a developer), but I would need some guidance on how to do that. Because if not, I think I would need to delete all the ~40K pictures from the external libraries for our phones, and then import then again. This is going to be a huge pain, because of the albums they are added to. Any help please? 🙏🏼

[skatsubo]

if there is a way I can migrate them from an external library to look like they were uploaded, just modifying some data in the database

Here you go, a proof of concept: https://github.com/skatsubo/immich-library-external-to-internal

[ilopmar]

Thank you very much for this, I'll definitely going to try this and I'll let you know how it goes.