[Android] Having both "Delete" and "Move to Trash" is confusing and unnecessary

[urbenlegend]

The bug

I think having both "Delete" and "Move to Trash" in the Android mobile app is confusing and unnecessary. "Delete" seems to delete the local copy and move the cloud copy to Trash. Meanwhile, "Move to Trash" only deletes the cloud copy and when the photo is permanently deleted from Trash, the app will reupload the local copy. I think this entire behavior is wrong from both a UX and a functionality perspective.

I propose this:

1. Remove the "Delete" button. It's combining two behaviors, "move to trash" and "delete from device" into one confusing button that is unclear, especially when there's already a separate "delete from device" button.
2. Keep the "Move to Trash" button that just moves the cloud copy to trash.
3. When a photo has been moved to Trash and then permanently deleted, only then delete the associated local copy.
4. Keep the "Delete from device" button as is.

This change will prevent the following confusing behaviors:

1. A user "deletes" a photo and then later restores it from Trash. Now he's confused where his local copy is.
2. A user selects "move to trash" on a photo, empties the trash, and then sees the image get re-uploaded to the server from the local copy.

The OS that Immich Server is running on

Arch Podman-Docker

Version of Immich Server

v1.121.0

Version of Immich Mobile App

1.121.0 build.168

Platform with the issue

• Server
• Web
• Mobile

Your docker-compose.yml content

Irrelevant

Your .env content

Irrelevant

Reproduction steps

Delete case

1. Select a photo and press delete
2. Go into trash and restore that photo
3. Notice that the local copy is gone from the device

Move To Trash case

1. Select a photo and press Move to Trash
2. Go into trash and empty it
3. Notice that the local copy is still there in the timeline and later gets backed up.

Relevant log output

No response

Additional information

No response

[Davide9908]

I think keeping only the Move to trash and Delete from device buttons will highlight another issue:

If the user wants to delete a photo from both the device and the server he would need to perform the 2 operations separately.
However, if he moves the photo to the trash, the photo will disappear from the app and he will not be able to delete the local file from within the immich app.

He would need either to use another application to delete the file or remember to use the "Delete from device" button first and then "Move to Trash"

[relic664]

I was onboarding new users into immich and found this behavior to be very confusing. The functionality of immich for delete is all there, but the UX is pretty bad. I'm not sure if it was the case when this issue was opened, but there's also a dialog "Allow immich to delete this photo" with allow or deny, and neither seem to do anything perceptible.

For most "average" users, there's no functional difference between delete and trash; when they delete something normally, stuff just goes to trash. There isn't usually a permanently delete option until you're deleting from trash.

I think there needs to be clear distinctions between local and cloud storages in dialogs, options, and icons. (Trash in immich being cloud trash can also be confusing).