[Feature] Ability to display and edit "Title" in addition to "Description"

[lprimak]

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

• Yes

The feature

Apple Photos macOS metadata includes "title" as the primary description for photos.
However Immich only supports "Description" which translates to "Caption" metadata in the EXIF.
Is there any way to add title as well as caption? Maybe something configurable so any EXIF string can be displayed?

Platform

• Server
• Web
• Mobile

[lprimak]

@alextran1502 What do you think of this feature?

[lprimak]

I have 30k photos in Apple which I diligently added titles, but not descriptions. Immich doesn't display them, this is the crux of the matter. Thank you

[VitosX]

I ran into the same problem. I use Apple Photos (macOS) for initial filtering and correcting of newly taken photos from my DSLR, then I export finished albums and import into Immich. I started copy pasting the title text into description just so I can use it in Immich, which is far from optimal.

[fivestones]

This is similar to #4220 which I posted 2 years ago, and it was added to Immich last year (#6344), and was working at least in a sense (to get the caption stored in exif data when editing a photo in Lightroom I think). However, I don't think it was ever picking up the description/caption from the photos app on iOS (which you can type in or view in the photos app by swiping down on a photo while viewing it). That's the feature I'd still like to see added. It looks like Photosync can do this; but I haven't seen any other iOS app claim to be able to do it (https://www.photosync-app.com/support/release-notes/photosync-4-8-for-ios-released?utm_source=chatgpt.com).

[lprimak]

This is a discussion about title, not description/caption specifically. An additional field that would be great if Immich was using.

[fivestones]

Hmm, ok. I guess I assumed they were the same since I don't see any way to add or edit a title on the photos app on iPhone, and the OP mentioned adding titles on Apple Photos. I guess maybe OP is talking about the Apple Photos app on macOS?

Thanks.

[lprimak]

Yes, that is correct. Apple Photos on macOS.

[majewskikarol]

I just noticed that those captions defined here in iOS are also not viable after importing to Immich. Would be awesome to have that.

[lprimak]

It gets a lot worse. Apple doesn't store anything in the image files. It uses it's own SQLite database. On macOS, it stores everything in it.
If you have iCloud, it will only transfer "caption" / "description" to iPhone, which has it's own SQLite database.
Nothing else gets transferred. Not title, not tags, not edited location (the original location that was taken with the Camera app survives), the only thing that survives is the original location because it's in the photo files itself.

If you don't have iCloud. Nothing gets transferred to the iPhone. Not caption / description, nothing. Only location is visible because it's in the file itself.

I wound up creating my own extraction program, MirrorImmich, which does everything I need.

See https://www.reddit.com/r/immich/comments/1n3tvls/comment/nd7gmqv/ and https://www.reddit.com/r/immich/comments/1niwdgs/mirrorimmich_update_macos_photos_sync_to_immich/

[KristianKarl]

The same feature request applies when using Digikam and it's generated sidecar files.

When Digikam writes the xmp sidecar files, titles (from Digkam) shows up as Caption and Title in the sidecar file:

exiftool image.jpg.xmp |grep "Some title"
Caption                         : Some title
Title                           : Some title

However, when sidecar file is read by Immich, that information is not captured/displayed in immich webapp.

digikam 8.8.0
exiftool 13.25
immich server v2.1.0

[zen-pavel]

I think that the best option is to let users choose what tags they want to see. Just add couple of customisable fields in the "Info" (my personal wish is immich to show xmp:creator)

[KristianKarl]

I agree - and that the customisable fields are searchable by the user 👍

[dubidubno]

I have thousands of photos in Lightroom Classic with IPTC Title, Caption, Tags, location (Country code, City etc.) If the app can't show and search any of that, like Flickr can, Immich is not for me.