[Feature] Enhancement: Add Extra Zoom-Out Level for Better Navigation in Large Photo Libraries

[ChazyChaxxx]

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

• Yes

The feature

Description

As personal photo libraries grow year after year, navigating through large timelines becomes increasingly difficult — even with the current "pinch-to-zoom" functionality provided in Immich's mobile app.

Currently, even at the most zoomed-out level, the vertical scroll bar is too sensitive and compressed: moving it by just 1 mm can skip several months of photos, especially on devices with large libraries. This makes precise navigation challenging.

Proposal / Feature Suggestion

Introduce an additional zoom-out level beyond the current minimum zoom, allowing the user to:

1. See significantly more photos at once — possibly by displaying ultra-small thumbnails.

2. Navigate the photo timeline more efficiently, even across multiple years.

3. Conceptually allow a zoom hierarchy:

   • Zoomed out (Year view): Quickly jump to a year.
   • Mid zoom (Month view): Navigate within that year.
   • Zoomed in (Day view): Browse specific days and moments.

Even if the thumbnails become very small or symbolic, the goal is not to view the image clearly at this level, but to improve large-scale navigation across long timelines.

Why It Matters

• Greatly improves usability for users with thousands (or tens of thousands) of images.
• Makes Immich more scalable as a long-term photo solution.
• Aligns with UX practices seen in other gallery apps that support hierarchical time-based navigation.

Tradeoffs / Considerations

• Thumbnails may become less visually clear, but this is acceptable at this level of zoom since it's meant for navigation.
• Requires UX/UI adaptation to represent time at higher levels (e.g., headers for years/months).
• May involve performance optimizations to avoid loading too many tiny images at once.

Platform

• Server
• Web
• Mobile

[bo0tzz]

If it's only for navigation, maybe it would be more useful to have a timeline scroll mode that's accessed by dragging the slider out to the left, similar to the youtube feature where you can drag the scrubber up for a different mode?