[Feature] Support for Nested Albums (Album Hierarchies)

[NJugel]

🧭 Feature Proposal: Support for Nested Albums (Album Hierarchies)

🙏 Intro – A Respectful Discussion First

Hi everyone,

I'd like to propose a technically focused feature discussion around supporting nested albums (album hierarchies) in Immich. I understand that this topic has come up before and often sparks strong opinions. So before diving in, I just want to say:

🚩 Let’s keep this a respectful and collaborative technical discussion.
The goal here is not to push a personal agenda, but to explore if and how nested albums could be added in a way that aligns with Immich’s vision, technical constraints, and design principles.

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🌱 Summary

Currently, Immich supports flat albums only. This proposal explores introducing album hierarchies, where albums can contain other albums, allowing users (especially families or archivists) to better organize large photo collections.

Use cases include:

• Organizing albums by year/event (e.g. Family > 2024 > Wedding)
• Structuring shared spaces (e.g. Kids > School > Grade 1)
• Simplifying navigation in large collections
• Migrating from folder-based legacy photo systems

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🧠 Feature Scope

Core Features

• Create albums as sub-albums of existing albums
• Change an album’s parent (re-parenting)
• Visualize the album tree (breadcrumbs or sidebar)
• Move albums (including full trees) to other parent albums
• Import a folder structure as a nested album hierarchy
• Share albums with or without their sub-albums
• Browse and search hierarchically

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🛠 Backend Requirements

Data Model

• Add parent_album_id column to album table (nullable FK to album.id)
• Optionally add depth or path field for faster traversal
• Migration strategy for existing albums (all become root albums)

API Changes

• POST /album → accept parent_album_id
• PATCH /album/:id → update parent
• GET /album/:id → return subalbums (eager or lazy)
• GET /albums/tree → return full hierarchy
• POST /albums/import-folder-tree → create nested albums from directory names
• POST /albums/move → re-parent an album (optionally recursively)

📦 Storage Backend Clarification: Object Storage is Not a Blocker

Just to clarify: nested albums are a database concept, unrelated to the physical file structure or backend storage layout.
Immich supports local filesystems, S3, and other object stores – these all treat files as flat keys.
The introduction of album hierarchies would have zero impact on object storage, since file placement is already decoupled from album organization.
Album hierarchy would live entirely in metadata and API logic.

Sharing

• Share album with option: “include subalbums”
• Respect recursive permissions for nested structures
• Public link inheritance (optional)

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🎨 Frontend (Web & Mobile)

Web

• Album tree UI (sidebar or nested view)
• Breadcrumb navigation in album view
• Drag & drop album reordering (optional)
• UI for creating, moving, and viewing subalbums
• Sharing UI with “include children” toggle

Mobile

• Tree navigation or breadcrumb approach
• Choose parent album on creation
• Move albums between parents

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🔄 Import Feature

• Detect folder structure from upload (e.g. local mount or S3 key prefix)
• Convert folders to nested albums
• Assign images to correct albums automatically

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🔬 Additional Options (Future-Ready)

• album_order → manual album sorting
• virtual albums → support for “smart albums” or tags-as-albums
• inherit_tags → optionally inherit parent album tags
• album_type → differentiate user-created vs imported vs AI albums

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⚖️ Design Considerations

• Albums are DB constructs → storage backend (local/S3/etc.) is unaffected
• Should not break flat album UX for current users
• Sharing & permissions get more complex → careful UI/UX needed
• Breadcrumbs and recursive rendering must be performant on large trees

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📈 Suggested Roadmap

Phase	Description
✅ Phase 1	Core hierarchy (DB changes + API + basic UI)
📤 Phase 2	Sharing, reparenting, visual navigation
📁 Phase 3	Folder import to album tree
📱 Phase 4	Mobile UI + edge cases (quota, performance)

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✅ Conclusion

Nested albums aren’t about replacing tags or folders – they serve a different mental model: a structured, intentional hierarchy for long-term organization. Many families, archivists, or power users would benefit greatly from this.

Thanks so much for considering this idea – and again, I welcome technical feedback, design alternatives, and respectful criticism.

Let’s build something awesome together. 🚀

Platform

• Server
• Web
• Mobile

[alextran1502]

#5024

[NJugel]

#2073

[bo0tzz]

Please don't post LLM spam like this. especially please don't remove the template checkbox about searching for duplicates 🫤

[NJugel]

To be honest, I don't quite get it.
It was my attempt to start a technical and respectful discussion. I read through the entire threads on github and reddit and had the feeling that it was hardly about technical discussions and more about ideological and emotionally driven arguments from both sides (pro and con).
In fact, I've spent the last few evenings researching the technical content and investigating the project locally.

So here's my question, are hierarchical albums in the vision of Immich and conceivable to be implemented or is it not in line with the plans to implement in Immich?
A specific answer as to when would be too far-fetched, but a general one that people can rely on would be helpful.

[bo0tzz]

are hierarchical albums in the vision of Immich and conceivable to be implemented or is it not in line with the plans to implement in Immich?

We have no plans either way right now, it's a complex feature and we don't currently have the time to discuss it in the team.