[Feature] Show local photos immediately on mobile app startup without waiting for server sync

[Ecuashungo]

I have searched the existing feature requests, both open and closed, to make sure this is not a duplicate request.

• Yes

The feature

Feature Request

I would like to use Immich as my main photo app on iOS, replacing the native Photos app as much as possible.

The main thing currently preventing this is startup time.

A very common use case for me is:

• I take a photo
• A few seconds later I want to open it again, show it to someone, or send/share it
• I open Immich
• I have to wait roughly 10 seconds until the app is fully usable (I only see the logo for a long time)

For photos that are still stored locally on the phone, I do not think the app should need to wait for the Immich server, remote sync, hashing, backup state, or any other network operation before showing them.

Ideally, startup would work more like this:

1. Open Immich
2. Immediately show the local/cached timeline
3. Immediately include newly taken local photos from the iOS photo library
4. Allow opening and sharing those local photos straight away
5. Perform server connection, sync, backup, metadata updates, etc. asynchronously in the background

The important part is that the local photo library should remain usable regardless of how fast the Immich server responds.

If the server takes 10 seconds to respond, or is temporarily unreachable, I should still be able to browse and open photos that physically exist on my phone immediately.

For me, the target experience would be similar to the native Photos app: tap the icon and the recent timeline is basically there immediately.

I think this would make a big difference for using Immich as an actual daily-driver photo app instead of mainly as a client for browsing a self-hosted photo library.

There are related requests around offline support and detecting newly taken photos, but I wanted to specifically request fast local-first startup, because this is what currently stops me from using Immich as my primary photos app.

Related issues/discussions

This seems related to #23558, where newly taken iOS photos are not detected immediately, although that issue is mainly focused on backup behavior.

Discussion #4466 also describes a very similar problem around offline/local usage and waiting for the server before local photos become usable.

I think this request is slightly different in scope: the goal here is specifically that the mobile timeline should render local assets immediately on startup, independently of server connectivity or sync state.

Platform

• Server
• Web
• Mobile

[Hollx3]

This is also the main reason I still need my Google photos app apart from editing which is not required daily.