[Feature] Avoid resyncing if deleted manually

[RebeliusGaming]

The feature

It would be great to avoid immich reuploading a photo that has been deleted in immich.

Platform

• Server
• Web
• Mobile

[arnelap]

Yes, this would be nice!
i understand deleting stuff is scary,... could be a setting with a big disclaimer?

I would even go as far as deleting the image on all devices if it's deleted on the server. Mostly im just cleaning up blurry and failed pictures and then they just reappear!!!

[Sjustein]

I just had this 'issue' happen to me as well. It would be great if immich could have a sort of blacklist of deleted photo's, so they will not be re-synced by the mobile app. I think the blacklist is currently in place (correct me if I'm wrong), where images that are in the trash, because immich doesn't care where the image is, if it exists somewhere, it will not re-upload the image. However, images in the trash are cleared after 30 days, so older images will still be re-uploaded.

I think, the desired feature would be:

• When an image is deleted, it is added to a blacklist, in addition to moving the image to the trash.
• When an image is restored from the trash, it is removed from the blacklist again.

If my assumption is correct, upping the deletion time from trash also solves the issue. I'll do some testing, but let me know whether I'm correct.

[Sjustein]

Immich indeed re-uploads images that are permanently deleted from trash. I've mitigated the issue temporarily by upping the trash auto deletion time, but it's a workaround for sure.

[jbcortes]

This issue is what keeps me from using the mobile app on a regular basis. Given the amount of time that it took me to initially go through all my photos/videos on the server and remove duplicate and unwanted photos, it was really frustrating to then see that the mobile app re-uploaded all the files I had deleted.

I've also seen this issue mentioned in:
#8285
#12051

[StoricU]

This would be very nice.
Doing general housekeeping in the browser now just don't work, since the photos just pop back up 😅
After what I understood when I asked about this on the dicscord, the feature are on the roadmap and should be implemented in the next few releases.

[tzhouML]

My mouth honestly dropped when I saw how poorly this is handled in immich. An option to only sync photos beyond <custom_date> in the mobile apps would probably eliminate all my qualms surrounding this issue.

[lachsh]

My approach along these lines has just been adding all photos before <custom_date> to an album on my phone that I exclude from immich, once I'm confident they've been uploaded – then I just need to make sure to only dedupe/tidy up photos that are already present in that album on my phone.

[Tkd-Alex]

+1, I've built a custom env where the photos are synced with Immich from my Android and iPhone to a dedicated home-server. Then the photos are backupped trought "syncthing" to another driver and I've a mechanism that delete the photos on the Immich server uploaded more than x days ago (clear storage). Now I see the mobile app re-upload all the photos. So I'm now out of space

[Valenwe]

+1

Because I use an external library on Read Only with my pictures inside, I usually move my phone pictures to my external folders. But then when I move my phone's medias to my external library, the phone's application re-backup my moved files (because it sees them as deleted assets) and create tons of duplicates.

The solution to this would be to keep track of backup-ed medias and not backup them again, even if they do not appear in the server. Because we know we already sent the media once, no need to send it again.
Another solution could be to backup only medias created after a given date, or the last backup date.

[geransmith]

Adding a vote for this one.

My wife was more than frustrated to find out that she spent hours deduplicating photos in the web UI, only to have them uploaded again by the app. There needs to be some way to make it so that photos don’t get automatically reuploaded.

[SP2FET]

Same issue for me - spent 2 days of cleaning up the library just to figure out, that mobile app (android) reuploaded all of the deleted photos... Previously I've been using photoprism with photosync app and it handled such cases perfectly, syncing only new files.
Is there any possibility to speed up any work on that particular feature?
Thanks in advance

[msebald]

Same problem here for me/us.

I am using FolderSync for Android until now to sync/backup files to my home server. There is an option to only transfer new/changed files to the destination and do not transfer deleted files (at the destination) from the smartphone again.

For sure this needs to be implemented in a different way in Immich - by maybe keeping the hashs of deleted files and offer an option on the mobile clients (and also the web interface when uploading directly) to only upload files which were not deleted before.

[hodlemperor]

I’m adding my specific case here since my issue (#23897) was closed as a duplicate — and after reading this thread, I fully agree that it belongs here.

There is one important scenario that makes this problem even more severe:

✔ When using an External Library (+ mobile backup enabled)

If a photo exists both:

• on the phone (mobile backup), and
• in a read-only External Library

Immich cannot remember that the user intentionally deleted the upload version after a merge.
Once Trash expires, the mobile app sees the file as “missing” and re-uploads it again → creating a duplicate again → and the cycle repeats forever.

✔ Merge duplicates does not fix this in practice

Technically, the user can merge duplicates:

• keep the External Library asset
• delete the upload version

…but after 30 days, the deleted-upload is gone, Immich forgets the hash, and the phone uploads the same file again.
So even the merge workflow is broken unless Immich can permanently remember excluded hashes.

✔ Realistic migration workflows make this unavoidable

This is also not an edge case.
Most users have:

• years or decades of photos remaining on their phone (even from 2006 or older),
• previous backup systems they don’t fully trust,
• overlapping content between phone and NAS/External Library while checking that everything was backed up correctly.

It is not realistic to expect users to:

• wipe their phone before migrating, or
• sanitize their entire External Library so that it never overlaps with their mobile library.

✔ The feature requested here (a permanent “deleted hash registry”) is exactly what solves it

A server-side list of hashes that were intentionally deleted would:

• prevent mobile clients from re-uploading them
• make the merge workflow actually viable
• stop duplicate loops
• allow External Libraries + mobile backup to coexist without chaos

Thanks — this FR is absolutely essential for users combining mobile backup with External Libraries.

[jazmit]

The "deleted files hash registry" would fix many pain points for me using Immich, dealing with unorganized files being shared between and uploaded from multiple users. Often we delete unwanted files only for them to be restored later and have to delete them again.

[brianpooe]

Is this being worked on? wonder if its even a feature request or just a defect hey.

[kiwi-software-dev]

Hi, i am also wondering if this is something that will come to immich's standard functionality anytime?
I got nothing to add, just to say i got the same problem. Deleted duplicates come back after moving them to trash and cleaning that up.
That's a pity for me :/

Actually, instead of deleting filed, i am currently archiving them, since storage space is the least issue for me.
Maybe it would help to - instead of deleting - be able to archive duplicates so they are removed from the timeline and not reuploaded?

That would be the faster fix, at least for me.

[timberpile]

I came to Immich from Synology Photos and love it!

Except that...
I spent hours and hours cleaning through old photos that were uploaded from my phone. Months later I realized that all that work was for naught :/

I expected Immich to work like Synology Photos, which DOES remember which files were already uploaded but deleted.

Having a blacklist for deleted file hashes would be a good solution to this problem.

The existing feature "Sync remote deletions" that deletes files on the phone when deleted on the server is NOT a solution to this problem. I want to keep these deleted photos on my phone, and have Immich be my curated photo collection.

I hope this feature gets implemented in the future, as it would make Immich a lot better for me!

[lrosm]

+1 on this, my wife was going mad about cleaning up and them reappearing. Seems like a simple fix?

[oleost]

So basically I cannot use any of the deplications feature and delete feature on web interface, as it just get reuploaded through my iphone.

Only way I can use this going forward is to choose to use Immich App on iOS and delete it both places.

Would love that if I delete picture through Immich web/deplication tool, I would get a popup message next time I open immich app on the devices that those picture got synced from saying that "Immich have deleted X photos, do you want to delete them on this device?"

[Redume]

+1

I delete photos/videos using a third-party app, immich restores the file. The same thing sometimes happens if I delete them using the immich app. At first, the files are gone and they are really deleted, but if I reopen the app, they may be restored

(this can have a negative impact on the phone's storage).

For example, this happens to me when I upload files to my server, add them to my personal folder, delete them from my phone, then go to my personal folder and after a while exit it, and see that these deleted files have been restored again.

(#25338)

[Rotaryracer]

Plus eleventy-billion for getting this added to the roadmap. I've been doing the initial testing to start hosting my and my wife's pictures from four different IOS devices. I actually thought I was losing my mind when I would delete a picture, and it would reupload, and I would delete again, and it would reupload again. I guess I'm glad I'm not crazy, but it's not really usable for me as a true "curated" photo hosting solution. I take a bunch of pictures, screenshots, etc of stupid stuff as a reminder to myself - I don't need to see those saved for posterity in Immich, nor do I want them to reappear once I've found and deleted them.

I saw there is movement on this for Android, although I think it was pulled at the last minute for the current release. Truly hoping an IOS fix can be supported soon, as essentially Immich is just acting as a mirror of my IOS device picture libraries right now.

[D4Ci0]

+1

Actually it drives me insane that for the last two years there is still no simple solution for this.

I have 1000 useless photos as information/reminder/etc for every 1-2 real photos. I dont need everyday photos in my timeline.

How is this still not implemented in the Androidand iOS App?

Photosync worked really great that way just adding new photos. What is really frustrating is that there is not even a single mentioning about that in roadmap/work in future.

I guess I‘ll still need to use photosync with photoprism instead of immich

[geransmith]

On iOS, I just made a shortcut to add photos to an “excluded” album, then set Immich to not upload those photos.

…

-------- Original Message --------

On Friday, 01/30/26 at 15:23 D4Ci0 ***@***.***> wrote: +1 Actually it drives me insane that for the last two years there is still no simple solution for this. I have 1000 useless photos as information/reminder/etc for every 1-2 real photos. I dont need everyday photos in my timeline. How is this still not implemented in the Androidand iOS App? Photosync worked really great that way just adding new photos. What is really frustrating is that there is not even a single mentioning about that in roadmap/work in future. I guess I‘ll still need to use photosync with photoprism instead of immich — Reply to this email directly, [view it on GitHub](#4282 (comment)), or [unsubscribe](https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AB5I3A3CFA4GIJZQ77J2HC34JPRYNAVCNFSM6AAAAABQDJBH4GVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43URDJONRXK43TNFXW4Q3PNVWWK3TUHMYTKNRVGU3DOMY). You are receiving this because you commented.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[theadin]

Spent hours deleting photos from my Immich site only to have them all reuploaded. What is even the point of having a delete option and delete duplicates option on the site if they get reuploaded LOL?

[MozPri]

Did you try the experimental option "Sync remote deletions"?
It works for me on android.

[theadin]

Sorry. I wasn't clear. I'm interested in deleting the photos on the Immich server without them being deleted on the phone. Though of course an option to delete from server on phone could also be useful, this is not what I'm looking for.
Thanks anyway

[D4Ci0]

Only thing in this case is to use Photosync and sync to a NAS share/folder and mount this exact folder as an external libary to immich. Phontosync does not reupload if this is set in the sync menu.

I also dont get why this simple feature is ignored for so long.

[theadin]

I understand what you mean regarding using Photosync .