Folder structure - I don't really get the rationale behind Immich's storage concept

[Ra72xx]

I'm currently trying out Immich and am generally impressed. However the way the assets are stored is not really satisfying, I think. My concern is that I want to store my personal photos in some concept that will survive the software managing them, e.g. as the least common denominator it should be a somehow sensible file system structure.

So I came to the conclusion that the best thing is to use an "external library". But integrating that correctly with other workflows is kind of a mess IMHO.

Yes, there is an UPLOAD_LOCATION, but this variable is pretty misnomed, as it is not really an upload location (which is the subfolder $UPLOAD_LOCATION/uploads) but more of a base-dir for Immich's data. Single folders within this base dir can be fine tuned, but the most importand one, the library, can't be given a custom path.
However, from some other page in the docs I then learned that this library subfolder is not really used any longer, only if you set up an storage template. It seems that nowadays the folder structure within $UPLOAD_LOCATION/uploads is the place where Immich wants to permanently store the photos by defaut. This directory is, however, IMHO both misnomed and not really structured in a human-readable way which I would like to have (at minimum, some kind of time-based folder naming to be able to use the pictures with other software than Immich).

I try to play around with docker mounts and Immich's environment variables to get some universally usable filesystem, but it does not really work out. Immich as main entry point to view the pics, Digikam to edit the pics, and Nextcloud (with Memories) as additional way to view the photos (e.g. to be able to import photos not importable by Immich's app), but there is really no way to get this going in a sensible way?

Do I see it right that Immich currently seems to insist on its own idea of storing photos? Or has anybody ideas of integrating Immich with other photo workflows out there?

[bo0tzz]

You're looking for the storage template feature.

this variable is pretty misnomed

Indeed, and we are planning to change it, but that's a breaking change and so will need some care.

the most importand one, the library, can't be given a custom path.

It sure can, it's just not a good idea because of files being moved from the upload dir, if it's a separate mount then that's a full transfer rather than an atomic move.

at minimum, some kind of time-based folder naming

The upload folder is structured as it is because files are stored there from the first moment they are uploaded and never moved (unless storage template is on). This is done because it offers the least IO overhead, and the least risk (of a move going wrong). The reason for the structure/filenames is because at the point these files are created there is simply no (time, etc) information available to use.

[Ra72xx]

I understand that point from a technical view, but that also means that you are about to give up all easy interoperability with other third party software, including photo editing software in the default setup?
I don't know if I like that tendency to a kind-of proprietary storage layout.
At least the documentation should be more clear about that, I got the impression that the defaul is a dates based folder layout which seems quite reasonable to me. Only later I found out that this has been changed.

[bo0tzz]

Like I said, this is what the storage template is for.

[Ra72xx]

Thanks for the quick reply.

I get it, I will use Immich with an external media archive, but will otherwise keep on working with foldersync'ing the image folders to my nextcloud instead of using the Immich upload feature in order to keep my workflow. I had been hoping I could streamline this by standardizing on Immich. (The problem is that I want all mobile photos sync'ed to my cloud, but only a tiny part of them will end in the lasting archive, those often with some enhancements by Digikam et al. Immich seems not really like it if photos it uploads from the phone are moved around and edited from the outside, I got lots of changes not picked up by the ui when I tried it out etc.)

Just curious: If I use Immich with its currenct default settings, what is the proposed workflow to do image editing on the photos with an external program (as Immich itself has no image enhancement features etc.)?

[alextran1502]

For me, I exported all the RAW images I took into Lightrooms, then I edited them there. Finally, I exported those edited photos to a folder in my PC and created an album in Immich to drag-and-drop to upload those photos into that album.

[Ra72xx]

Yes, something like that is what I will do, too. However, it would have been great if one could both use Immich as a viewer for the photo archive and edit the same set of pictures seamlessly, without need to import/export into/from the Immich file system world.

[alextran1502]

Yeah editing is another beast that we will eventually tackle