Self Hosted Guru
/2 min readApp

Immich: self-hosted photo backup with Docker Compose

Immich backs up photos and videos from your phone to your own server. What it needs and how to install it with Docker Compose.

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Immich is a photo and video library you host yourself. The mobile app backs up the camera roll in the background, and the web interface gives you a timeline, albums, shared links, a map, face recognition and search by what is in the picture.

What you need

  • A Linux host with Docker and the Compose plugin
  • At least 6 GB of RAM and 2 CPU cores. With 4 GB Immich can run only with machine learning turned off.
  • Enough disk for the library
  • A local disk for the database. Network shares are not supported for PostgreSQL data.

Install

Create a folder and download the two files the project publishes with every release:

mkdir immich-app && cd immich-app
wget -O docker-compose.yml https://github.com/immich-app/immich/releases/latest/download/docker-compose.yml
wget -O .env https://github.com/immich-app/immich/releases/latest/download/example.env

Edit .env before the first start. Three values matter:

# Where photos and videos are stored
UPLOAD_LOCATION=/srv/immich/library
# Where the database lives, on a local disk
DB_DATA_LOCATION=/srv/immich/postgres
# Change it. Letters and digits only, no special characters.
DB_PASSWORD=change-me

The same file has IMMICH_VERSION. Leave it as downloaded, or pin an exact release if you want updates to happen only when you decide.

Start the stack:

docker compose up -d

It runs four containers: the server, machine learning, Valkey and PostgreSQL.

First run

Open http://<host>:2283. The first account you register becomes the administrator. Install the mobile app, enter the same address as the server URL and turn on backup.

Updating

docker compose pull && docker compose up -d

Read the release notes first. Some releases need a manual step.

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