[Feature]: "Add to Library"

[nep2ner]

Feature detail

It'd be nice to have an "Add to Library" option for photos that others have shared with you. This could be done on a per-photo or per-album basis.

This way, if someone shares a photo with me via Immich shared album, it's easy for me to set that photo to be viewable from my main photo's tab (what I'm calling a "Library" for the sake of this request) without needing to download it and re-upload it to my own user's Immich library. Sometimes a user might want any new photo added to a shared album to be included in their library, and sometimes a user might just want to pick a particular photo out of a shared album to include in their library.

Even if the original owner deletes the photo on their account, it should remain accessible to other users who have saved that photo to their library.

Platform

Server

[alextran1502]

Neat idea, love it!

[klejejs]

This is something that I and my family actively use in Google Photos and it would be very useful to have in Immich as well.

[dolfje]

This is also necessary to add a photo from a shared album to your own albums? (Without downloading and reuploading)

[aviv926]

In fact, when I want to ensure that a photo stays with me if I was shared with it, I create a new album in my user and then from the shared album I add to the new album I created
And that's how the image always stays (I'm not sure if it's a bug, but maybe @alextran1502 will know)

[aisbergde]

at least on the Android mobile client this is not possible. Maybe thos was a bug, which you used as a feature? Or does it still work? Does it create a copy in your own library, or does it "just work" with the asset still only in the library or the contributor?

[axgd-code]

Is this topic related to : #2730 ?

[frederikb96]

I guess this feature could be the one which is able to address all the other feature requests about shared albums and partner sharing not being available in the timeline and the smart functions.

The main problem is that it gets complicated quickly when trying to implement those advanced sharing mechanisms...

The idea could be to go for a modular approach:

• Having this "add to library" function as the lowest level, which will be able to:
  • link the asset to once own library
    • optional: a button to unlink from original asset and do a real copy
    • as long as its linked: changes like date/time or geo are obviously synced
    • all functionalities of the asset are available to all parties, so it will be displayed on timeline, on the map, and the face clustering should use it
    • to not make this even more complicated, for now, I guess it is best that the face clustering does not sync between parties, since this gets so complicated quickly
    • Just trying to use the asset as "virtual copy" but simply not storing it two times on disk
    • but still using separate database entries or so for clustering etc.
  • if the linked asset gets deleted by original user, copy it instead to the sharees libraries
• And then have higher level function blocks which use this lower block, e.g. to:
  • add a whole album to library (basically calling our add to library for each asset in album)
    • related once, about library, or smart functions:
    • [Feature] View photos from albums shared with me in timeline #1779
    • [Feature] allow use of explore features for shared albums #3176
    • [Feature] Integrate assets and albums shared with a user in this user own timeline #3984
    • [Feature] Shared Albums Photo Show On Shared User's timeline. #7047
    • [Feature] Memories for shared album members #3780
  • or add all assets of partner to own library/map/faces
    • related once, about library, or smart functions:
    • Faces, Map View on photos from partner #6339
    • [Feature] Show Face Recognition for Partner #5089

I'm not familiar with the code structure, but I think it would be helpful to try and link a single asset to another person's library and be able to operate on it as if it were your own. This might be the first step in being able to address the other requests at some point :)

[lippertmarkus]

@alextran1502 I would love to help on this feature but would need some help finding the right places to start

[bo0tzz]

If you're on Discord, jump into our contributing channel and we'll chat about it.

[frederiknolte]

Hey @alextran1502, is this the "Fine grained access controls" feature that is on the roadmap for this year? If not, do you think this could be put on the roadmap? Considering this feature request exists in various forms with double or triple digit votes

[alextran1502]

Yep, it is more or less will depends on that mechanism

[vadim0872]

This is what we are planning to do, to split asset entity away from the owner information. So we can have modular approach on different style of sharing in the future

Will it also be possible to implement data deduplication?
Currently, if you add the same image/video to different people, it will be saved twice on the HDD.

[AleXburnA]

I am very looking forward to this as well. It would be amazing to have this!

[dwrtewd]

This would be a great feature, especially as more people start sharing servers.

[IlBuonTommy]

Problem statement: Many people share photos because eg. family members use different accounts where they upload their photos. After uploading the photos themselves they can create a shared album. The problem is, that these photos will never make ones timeline. Eg. if i want to view my family members’ photos i always need to go to the shared albums one by one.

Proposed solution: Add an option to show shared photos on the timeline. I think it would be a better experience.

Implementation tips: the goal is to show photos from shared albums in the personal timeline, for me having the ability to edit or delete a specific photo from the album is secondary. Even still having those photos available even though the owner has deleted them is not of primary importance to me, of course it would be great to become the owner of the photos from a shared album in case the previous owner decides to delete the photos, or to suggest to the owner to delete or edit a photo (this feature will open up new problems, such as understanding which bin the deleted photo will go to), or when I share an album with someone (only immich users) I can assign specific roles to users (view only, view and edit, view edit and add). The only thing that could be really useful would be to be able to have facial recognition also on shared albums.

[DeltaTango69]

It would be important for us that someone takes care of the personal identification and that this data is identical in both accounts. As I understand the possible implementation, both would have to recognize the person and there could also be different results?!

[lukashass]

Just want to add my two cents here and say that I would currently prefer an implementation that is as simple as possible, so basically just copies assets into my own library as if I would upload them manually.

My two main reasons for this are:

• once I added assets to my library I expect that no one else can alter them (or any metadata) in any way
• an implementation based on sharing the same file/database-entries seems a lot more error prone

Anyways, looking forward to this feature, regardless of the approach that will be implemented.

[Hossy]

+1 on this. I'm currently going through pictures of my dad who passed away. Multiple family members have all added their photos to a single shared album which we are trying to narrow down what goes in the video slideshow for which I created a second shared album. I can't currently add a photo someone else uploaded/added to another album. If I try from the multi-photo view, I get a message that says it was already added even though it wasn't.

[charettepa]

I think the easiest way to implement this would be to "automate" behind the scenes
using the same process that has been suggested to achieve this

currently
you must download the file, then drag and drop or stick it in the upload folder within your user subfolder
it will then get processed as a fresh upload

so in theory the "Add to Library" button
could simply save it directly to your users upload folder
as this value is already known to the system
i get that it is "not as efficient"
but this would be the quick way to implement it
with possible further enhancements in the future

[markdepalma]

Just started using Immich and was upset that I could not create a new album from shared album because all of my wife's pictures were unable to be added. Really looking forward to this.

[yoannwyffels]

+1 "Add to my library" will be a good idea...Just copy the selected media files to the user upload directory to be processed by the actual import engine will be enough ;)

[JcMinarro]

I don't think copy&paste should be the way to go.
It will duplicate the space for something that wouldn't be needed.
Instead, it should keep a reference for the original file, and doesn't mind where it is "physically stored"

[yoannwyffels]

Agree on the duplicate, but if the partner decide to delete the file...then...we will need to mark it as deleted in the partner library, not in our library (so at the end, file will not be deleted physcially).

[axgd-code]

One solution would be to let the user choose; a photo could have two states:
– remote,
– local.
It would then work like photo display on a smartphone: both are shown, but the user can choose to save one locally.

[JaydenWSiena]

Whats the issue with duplicating the photo? Or at least having the option to “Copy to Library” while this feature is missing?

…

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[Crocmagnon]

Whats the issue with duplicating the photo?

It takes twice the space.

[vadim0872]

@alextran1502

Implementation suggestion: use a symbolic link mechanism or something similar.

The original photos should be stored separately in another place (for example, library/originals, it doesn't matter), and links to the originals are stored in the library/user1 folder. When user2 clicks "add to my library" the link is added to library/user2.
When someone deletes a photo, it is checked whether someone has a link to this photo, if there are no more links, then you can delete the original.

In this case, you can effectively store photos without duplicates and unnecessary io operations when users copy photos to their library.

[bo0tzz]

No need to ping Alex. Symlinks are not a magic solution, they come with a bunch of caveats such as not working across different mount points.

[vadim0872]

So I also pointed out that you can use a mechanism similar to symlinks.

[luxychris2009]

sounds like a pretty effective and efficient solution. hopefully it will be considered and looked into soon! thanks for the input!

[luxychris2009]

it would also be important to keep the sidecar information with the photos when copying/moving between users. in addition to "per photo" ... it would be nice to simply copy/move and entire album! :) thank you immich team for brainstorming a grand solution for us here!

[blublub]

Could we take it one step further and offer a full deduplication? - so that no identical file will be stored more than once?

In setups with multiple users, i.e families, this will drastically improve/reduce storage requirements.

For this all image data can be inside one single folder and the DB tracks who "uses" the file:

1st user uploads

2nd user uploads - since the file is already stored Immich adds a 2nd user to the file

Also user 1 can share/hand over the file with user 2 - if any user deletes a file from its own library the file is stored until all users delete the file.

[Sheyne]

I wonder if storing your photos by some kind of content hash would be a good solution to this?