[Feature] Write face metadata to sidecar files

[bo0tzz]

I have searched the existing feature requests to make sure this is not a duplicate request.

• Yes

The feature

After a face is detected in an image, write it back to the file metadata so it's persisted outside of Immich's internal database.

cont. #4348

Platform

• Server
• Web
• Mobile

[grunwalski]

I do think this is an feature many people don't think about ahead and therefore will not request activley. But I'd also guess, many people would miss it, once they realize, their downloaded photos are missing some bits - literally.

For me, trying immich its about getting away from google or apple photos, who already don't allow me to move ALL my data at once. I really wouldn't like to have another captor.

Being able to write generated metadata into the files or an XMP sidecar feels like a net I didnt expect when fell. Its about wanting to be here, because I could leave, not because moving would be a hassle. :)

[cbbyrnes4]

there may already be another issue for this, but I think it'd be great to give the user the option to write the metadata, through Immich, to the photo files directly (as opposed to the sidecar files). That way everything is self-contained, and you don't run the risk of those files being separated at some point. I do understand the philosophy of keeping them separate so as not to "taint" the originals, but a choice would be great.

[prorokrak]

This is definitely something I would appreciate if Immich could do. In this way, the interoperability with other software, like Digikam, could be much more easily achieved. Sometimes, Immich might have better results in face detection than Digikam. So naming person there might be better. On the other hand, Digikam makes it easier to confirm faces / reassign detected face to another person. With the suggested functionality one could always use the best tool for the job.

And most importantly, it would make more sense to spend hours with naming persons in Immich knowing that the work done there is usable not just in Immich. I am really tired from having to tag persons again and again when some software becomes obsolete (looking at you, Picasa).

For me, sidecar files are more preferred for storing the information. Having an option to choose would be nice since other people would prefer having it directly in the metadata of image file.

[JasonMAnderson]

The lack of this capability is the only reason I hesitated to move to Immich, but I've done it anyways because the app is great. We need to think of our photos as memories, or more importantly, our legacy. Having that data being portable is just so important - think of the scenario of 30+ years of family memories being given to my kids when I die. If they don't have the capability to run Immich, they lose that important face-tagging data. Please consider this feature.

[charlie-cheetah]

This is the last piece I need to perfectly organize my photos. I wrote a script to export faces via the API and write them to an XMP sidecar. But I would love for Immich to do it automatically for me.

[Ged296123]

would really appreciate to see that script

[Plasma8350]

Yes, the script would be really helpful. @charlie-cheetah Could You publish it in some form?

[yuhuan417]

This is a script I wrote using AI and tested on my photo lib. Use at your own risk. https://github.com/yuhuan417/immich-scripts

[Plasma8350]

It works great. Thank your very much.

[5TDg9]

Maybe it is not implemented yet, because there is no worldwide standard of how to save face tagging info in XMP-sidecar files.
But still, if there is no standard doesn't mean it's not possible and not necessary.
Immich should do it in the same way Digikam is doing it.

[grunwalski]

How is Digikam doing it?

[rhatguy]

Maybe it is not implemented yet, because there is no worldwide standard of how to save face tagging info in XMP-sidecar files. But still, if there is no standard doesn't mean it's not possible and not necessary. Immich should do it in the same way Digikam is doing it.

Please see the original issue opened for reading metadata (#4348) . There was a lot of discussions about the standards in there. I'm not sure how you "officially" set a standard. I.E. who declares a specific format a standard? Regardless, the industry is somewhat settling on a format for interoperable face metadata. Various tools like Digikam, Mylio, and the venerable exiftool are all capable of reading and writing interoperable metadata. Immich is able to READ that same metadata now. If writing that same format of metadata is implemented, those other apps (and more) should be able to leverage it.

[dlehman83]

I just want to add my thoughts here. Writing the metadata is very important, but don’t write the AI generated data without human confirmation much like digikam does it.

Maybe with the way clustering is done its not an issue for Immich. I don’t know I have face detection turned off because it can’t write the results.
In digikam I’ve been tagging old photos and it gets kids confused when they are of similar age to a previously tagged photo.

I prefer the tags written in the file for portability, but digikam can read the tags and write it out to the file if Immich didn’t want to touch the original. Having the tagging done in Immich would allow the whole family to help with the job.
I imported my parents old HDD backup that was tagged with Windows Photos Gallery, that portability for future is a must.

Thank you for this app and all the work you do, I’ve been testing it for a week or so now and really liking it.

Edit: Just to do a fair comparison, I spun up another instance of immich and let it tag faces. It was much faster and did a much better job than digikam, but it still gets things wrong. That is to be expected, but highlights the need for human verification before writing tags.

[roleohibachi]

I've shared your experience. Perhaps a good UX would be to continue storing facetags in the database until a user clicks "confirm" (a la DigiKam) or corrects the tag. At that point, the facetag could be committed to metadata with confidence.

[rhatguy]

I second this idea of committing metadata to files when a user confirms. I believe its important that this metadata be transferrable to future generations through the metadata (much like writing names on the back of pictures).

The only thing I would add is that it would be nice if there were a way to "commit all", or bonus points if there were a way to select a group of pictures (say all photos of a certain person) and commit all of that at once.

[Victoare]

Also this is the one stopping me from pour immense hours to tag and organize my memories. 200k+images 10k+videos.
Really hyped about all the machine learning stuff as they do their job brilliantly, but they can re-run anytime.
I hope someday this will work and I hope all things we would do manually with our libraries could be saved in a (somewhat) standardized manner.
Not because I planning on changing from Immich, but this would be a soothing database "backup" companion.

[johntaggart1652-blip]

this is 100% stopping me from moving to Immich. I want compatibility. right now I can do this with Tonfotos and even picasa

[stilsch]

I need this too. I don't know if immich will be there in 20 years (hope so!), but having faces in sidecars would allow me to have it in future products!

[stilsch]

I would like to extend the request. The album name(s) should also be written into sidecar-files! AFAIK this is only living in the PostgreSQL. If the PostgreSQL is lost all the description of the Album is lost.

[b-a0]

Is there a standard EXIF field for that? If not I think Immich should not be creating custom fields, but just place it in a (nested) EXIF tag.

[dionorgua]

xmpDM:album can be used for this. But the problem is that immich supports multiple albums per photo...

[Victoare]

My other problems with this, that I'm right now organizing my files on the filesystem level to separate different "streams" of photos. I know this is not the way immich would like to work, but this is my workflow. It is working for most of the time, but if I mark a face or update one and then I move these images to a different folder I lost my progress and have to add/update again.
Albums also would be fun to make and write to the images or in my case I would be happy for an album.xml file in my folders to describe the folder as an album.

[fscheps]

I am really hoping to see this implemented soon. I have to do a ton of manual work tagging pictures (thousands of them), tagging faces, etc. I dont want to have to feel stressed that Immich will keep all this information in a DB and I wont be able to export it at least through Sidecard files in case I ever need to move away from Immich. I dont want to have to do all the manual work multiple times, I need to be able to do it just once.
Additionally, as others have shared in this thread, having the option to ask Immich to write certain details if not all metadata directly to the image file itself, preserving the capture date, this would be even better for me, then I dont need to worry about sidecar files at all and I always ensure all my pictures have all the data embedded, but I also understand is not everyones cup of tea, so I would conform with more complete sidecar files please.

[b-a0]

Regarding your second point (writing to image itself): there's a community plugin that writes a subset of EXIF fields to the actual image file (no faces though).

[rainforest1155]

I'm considering using immich as an easy way to share my library of photos with my family. Right now I'm using Mylio to catalog my photos and while they also have a family offering, the software is very complex and even locked down to just certain features, it's not something that's easily usable by family.

Mylio writes sidecar face information like this:
<mwg-rs:Regions rdf:parseType="Resource"> <mwg-rs:AppliedToDimensions stDim:w="4032" stDim:h="3024" stDim:unit="pixel"/> <mwg-rs:RegionList> <rdf:Seq> <rdf:li> <rdf:Description mwg-rs:Type="Face" mwg-rs:Name="Sam" mwg-rs:Description="mylio_face"> <mwg-rs:Area stArea:x="0.291602" stArea:y="0.765723" stArea:w="0.130957" stArea:h="0.146029" stArea:unit="normalized"/> </rdf:Description> </rdf:li> </rdf:Seq> </mwg-rs:RegionList> </mwg-rs:Regions>
It also adds legacy IPTC data with no position:
<Iptc4xmpExt:PersonInImage> <rdf:Seq> <rdf:li>Sam</rdf:li> </rdf:Seq> </Iptc4xmpExt:PersonInImage>

I'm hoping to soon be able to use immich in tandem with Mylio where I could immich also write back face metadata for Mylio to pick up using an external library in immich that Mylio also uses.