Why Aren't External Libraries Public by Default?

[ndfan77]

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

• Yes

The feature

I have a huge library of family photos that roughly 10 people need to access -- WITHOUT having to make them all sharing partners, and WITHOUT them having to access the library through the Sharing sidebar menu! How awkward!

Why have an "External Libraries" option (under Administrative settings and not under Account settings), that isn't automatically shared with all users? Or, why not have a "public" option on each External Library so their contents automatically populate for all users (including faces, and folder structure, etc.)

Access controls would eventually also be nice, but if initially it was just read-only except for the owner that would be a huge first step.

This is a deal-breaker for me.

Platform

• Server
• Web
• Mobile

[bo0tzz]

For the same reason everything else isn't public by default. Better sharing is planned, but we have no intention to change these defaults.

[ndfan77]

Default or optional doesn't really matter. The problem is the functionality is just missing.

Why not have a Private|Public drop-down option when an External Library is created that controls public visibility? It's perfectly fine if it defaults to Private. (Later on down the road you could get into user groups, and that could be 3rd+ option.)

Right now it's just plain awkward to share read-only access to a large library of photos to all users. (Both because they have to be explicitly shared with each individual user, and because those users then have to go into the Sharing menu and pick the user that shared the External Library, before they can even see them -- and then the search/view/people functionality is limited.)

An External library should have an option to make it public for everyone (read-only except for the owner is perfectly fine) so that the photos (faces, tags, etc.) are part of everyone's UX as if they were actually uploaded by that user. And, users shouldn't having to go into a Sharing menu to see or search for photos in publicly shared libraries.

If you want to be an attractive platform alternative to PhotoPrism, sharing large ("External") libraries to all users needs to be easier. Immich is better than PhotoPrism in many ways (especially face recognition), but as a shared photo repository it's trailing PP significantly. (And that really hurts when it's the primary use case for the platform.)

[LMSSonos]

If you want to be an attractive platform alternative to PhotoPrism, sharing large ("External") libraries to all users needs to be easier. Immich is better than PhotoPrism in many ways (especially face recognition), but as a shared photo repository it's trailing PP significantly. (And that really hurts when it's the primary use case for the platform.)

fully agree on this, would be awesome to share a external library to other family members (readonly) including faces, tags, etc!