[Feature] External library upload

[peterdstone]

The feature

I've gone for a workflow where 2 of us share an account and use syncthing to move files to server, exiftool to copy to destination and immich to serve images.

the request is 3 parts.

1. for an option to have a library at admin level for all or selected users
2. allow upload to an external library or shared location.
3. raised elsewhere... delete from library.

I tried immich upload with exif tool but got duplicate entries, half broken.

excellent work btw. clean interface but most importantly fast and workable with 7Mb upload.

Platform

• Server
• Web
• Mobile

[treardon17]

My use case for this:

I take a bunch of photos on my DSLR while I'm on a trip, and I want to store the RAW photos in a year/trip_name/raw folder, and put all my edits in year/trip_name/edits. Each day I back up my photos to the raw folder. I want to be able to manage (upload/move/delete) all the photos on a per-trip basis, and it would be very convenient to manage all of this within the same application. I used to do this with google drive/google photos when they were connected, and then switched to synology photos, but would prefer an open source solution, and completely switch to immich.

[aisbergde]

if you used synology photos, then you own a Synology.

My current workaround is

• using Synology Drive to upload photos
• mounting this folder as external library
• enable the immich automatic scan of new content
• using external software like digiKam to manage my assets

It is only a workaround. Using immich upload directly would be better and easier.

[treardon17]

@aisbergde that makes sense. I think my main issue is that I want a single place to manage and consume my photos. I'm not sure I really see the point of me using Immich if it's only a way to consume the photos. The photo management is just as useful if not more useful to me than the ability to view the photos.

I will hold off using Immich until there is a folder view, and either the ability to define a custom folder structure in an internal library or the ability to upload/delete files in an external library. Until then, Synology photos works well enough. It's just resource constrained on a lower powered machine and is not open source.

[atomicpumpkins]

Folder view is coming in the next version. You can automate the moving workflow on the OS level of your choice.
#5409 (comment)

[mjforan]

+1 for "allow upload to an external library or shared location."
I like to keep all my media organized in the external library. I also like to keep my phone synced using the mobile app or to occasionally upload to the web interface. Manually moving files from the Immich library to my external folder causes problems. I wish I could set uploads to go to a folder in my external library.

[ldivl]

I use another storage device to host my media over SMB. It would be great to have the option to upload directly to an external library. Additionally, having the ability to define the folder structure during uploads would be highly beneficial. For example, I currently use the Photosync app, which organizes files in the following structure: basefolder > yyyy > mm. My workflow works pretty dang good, but it would be better to upload directly so system can perform indexing immediately without having to do scheduled scans or file monitoring.

[canton7]

As much as I hate adding "me too" comments, there's another aspect which I don't think has been mentioned.

I like to take photos on my phone and edit on a computer. I've got Owncloud set up to sync photos between my phone, computer and server, and Immich running on the server.

If I upload photos to Immich from my phone, I don't get to edit them on my computer (as you can only upload photos to Immich's library, and you can't change those files from under Immich). If I set them up as an external library in Immich then I can edit them on my computer, but don't get to upload them to Immich from my phone.

(Granted I can upload them to Owncloud from my phone, then use my computer to organise them into folders, create albums on Immich, etc, but it's much more laborious).

Immich is so close to supporting this case perfectly: it "just" needs to be able to upload to external libraries from a phone.

Either way, I'm loving Immich. Thank you for the great work ❤️

[aisbergde]

maybe I didn't understand your issue.
I am using Synology and Synology Drive to upload, and as soon as it is on my NAS, it is available via external libraries in immich. I don't understand, what could be the issue here.
My issue: limited possibilities on assets in external libraries (edit, ...)

[canton7]

It's as I describe. The Immich mobile app is wonderful for letting you select a bunch of images easily, and assigning them to a new album there and then. It's quick and convenient, no computer needed, no need to log into the Immich web interface to create a new album, etc. The only downside is that there's no way to do this to external storage, so it doesn't work with my set-up.

Instead, I have to let Owncloud sync the assets, then go in on my computer and manually sort the assets into folders, create an album on Immich, assign the assets to an album, etc. It works, but it's much less convenient than just a couple of taps from the mobile app.

[aisbergde]

maybe I didn't understand your issue.
I am using Synology and Synology Drive to upload, and as soon as it is on my NAS, it is available via external libraries in immich. I don't understand, what could be the issue here.
My issue: limited possibilities on assets in external libraries (edit, ...)

[bo0tzz]

@canton7 I don't know what editing tools you use, but it seems to me like your case would be best solved with some sort of integration from your editor (as a plugin or such) to interact with assets in Immich.

[canton7]

It would be solved perfectly by the request made by others in this discussion: to allow uploads to external libraries.

IMO that's far more likely to happen (and would amost certainly work better) than reworking a photo editor to support using a third-party web-based photo management app.

[ruocchio]

+1 for this, or something like it.

I wonder if a slightly different approach would work - is it possible to just allow a user to configure their library to a different mount point? Of course that would be dependent on whether or not a users library react to FS changes dynamically, or is it triggered by an upload/app user action? Just curious, as this would make all libraries external in a sense, with one being the default.