Explanation how "sync albums" on the mobile app works

[zolakt]

I've read the docs, but honestly, I'm still confused how this works. Either I'm missing something or this only makes sense in some niche use cases.

I'll give an example of what I want to achieve. I want to sync all images I take with the camera. Some of these pictures, but not all, I later move to specific folders on the device, e.g. "the cat" folder.

When you take a picture with the camera it doesn't ask you for each picture where you want to store it. It just goes to the default camera location. If you want it somewhere else, you have to move it subsequently.

So in Immich if I backup both the "Camera" and "The cat" folder, from what I understood from the docs, it will only add it to the "Camera" album and ignore the later move to "The cat" album. Is that correct?

If that is true, I fail to see the usefulness of this feature, apart from splitting up things by app so Camera/Screenshots/WhatsApp/etc. My problems is that I don't backup anything apart from the Camera, and those I'd like more fine-grained. I assumed a lot of people use this the same way. I really don't want to backup screenshots and random WhatsApps crap.

What is really missing here is to selectively choose which device albums you want to sync to immich albums, not just all or nothing. I still want to backup all of them, but not all should be added to Immich albums. I don't need a "Camera" album in Immich, the timeline is my Camera album.

Is this correct or am I missing something? How do other people handle this use case? Maybe I'm wrong, but I think this is actually the most common use case for the "sync albums" feature