fshr

The musings of a grumpy hairless ape

Photo Storage

Introduction

I run Immich for local home photo storage. This is not a replacement for using Apple iCloud, but as an additional copy of my/our photos in case there’s ever any issue with iCloud, or at some point the US Administration decides that the American people are the only ones allowed to use US services and iCloud vanishes.

Immich Setup

Hosting

I currently host Immich on my NAS as a set of four Docker containers managed via the Compose Manager Plus Docker Compose plugin:

  • immich-server
    • Main Immich server
  • immich-machine-learning
    • Provides services for facial recognition, OCR, etc.
  • redis
    • Used internally by Immich for task management (I think)
  • database
    • Postgres database dedicated for Immich

Compose Files

The compose files I use are slightly modified versions of the official Immich Unraid compose files:

docker-compose.yaml


# Customised compose file based on:
# https://docs.immich.app/install/docker-compose
# https://github.com/immich-app/immich/releases/latest/download/docker-compose.yml
#
# Must be updated inline with version releases!!

name: Immich

services:
  immich-server:
    container_name: immich-server
    image: ghcr.io/immich-app/immich-server:${IMMICH_VERSION:-release}
    devices:
      - "/dev/dri:/dev/dri"
    volumes:
      - ${UPLOAD_LOCATION}:/data
      - ${EXTERNAL_LOCATION}:/external
      - /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro
    env_file:
      - .env
    ports:
      - '2283:2283'
    depends_on:
      - immich-redis
      - immich-database
      - immich-machine-learning
    restart: always
    healthcheck:
      disable: false

  immich-machine-learning:
    container_name: immich-machine-learning
    image: ghcr.io/immich-app/immich-machine-learning:${IMMICH_VERSION:-release}
    volumes:
      - model-cache:/cache
    env_file:
      - .env
    restart: always
    healthcheck:
      disable: false

  immich-redis:
    container_name: immich-redis
    image: docker.io/valkey/valkey:9@sha256:3b55fbaa0cd93cf0d9d961f405e4dfcc70efe325e2d84da207a0a8e6d8fde4f9
    healthcheck:
      test: redis-cli ping || exit 1
    restart: always

  immich-database:
    container_name: immich-postgres
    image: ghcr.io/immich-app/postgres:14-vectorchord0.4.3-pgvectors0.2.0@sha256:bcf63357191b76a916ae5eb93464d65c07511da41e3bf7a8416db519b40b1c23
    environment:
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: ${DB_PASSWORD}
      POSTGRES_USER: ${DB_USERNAME}
      POSTGRES_DB: ${DB_DATABASE_NAME}
      POSTGRES_INITDB_ARGS: '--data-checksums'
      DB_STORAGE_TYPE: 'HDD'
    volumes:
      - ${DB_DATA_LOCATION}:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    shm_size: 128mb
    restart: always
    healthcheck:
      disable: false

volumes:
  model-cache:

.env


# Customised compose file based on:
# https://docs.immich.app/install/environment-variables
# https://github.com/immich-app/immich/releases/latest/download/example.env

IMMICH_VERSION=v2
TZ=Europe/London

UPLOAD_LOCATION=/mnt/user/Immich-Data/Library
DB_DATA_LOCATION=/mnt/user/Immich-Data/Postgres/data
EXTERNAL_LOCATION=/mnt/user/Immich-External

REDIS_HOSTNAME=immich-redis

DB_HOSTNAME=immich-database
DB_DATABASE_NAME=immich
DB_USERNAME=postgres
DB_PASSWORD=<burp>

The main changes are to include device support to passthrough the Intel iGPU for hardware assisted transcoding and adding an additional mounted folder for an External library location.

File Locations

On my NAS I have two top-level shares configured for Immich (as in the .env above):

  • An Upload (i.e. main library) and database share under /mnt/user/Immich-Data
  • An External library share under /mnt/user/Immich-External

This separation allows me to share the external library over SMB for uploads, while keeping the main library and database location secured.

Importing Photos

I currently have a reasonably large iPhotos library of around 50k photos and 2k videos.

To import this into Immich I’m using a two stage process with osxphotos to export from iPhotos to a local USB HDD, and then the Immich CLI running in local docker to import from that USB HDD into Immich.

This gives me the advantages of both being able to control how and when I do exports and imports, plus ending up with a 3rd copy of my photos on the USB HDD.

I trigger the export and imports with a set of scripts:

export.sh

#!/bin/bash

year=2014

printf "\n"
printf "### Exporting for year - $year #################################################\n"
printf "\n"

osxphotos export .  --touch-file --export-by-date --download-missing --use-photokit --exiftool --keyword-template "{label}" --sidecar XMP --update --from-date "$year-01-01" --to-date "$year-12-31" --save-config osxphotos.toml

printf "\n"
printf "### Finished for year - $year ##################################################\n"
printf "\n"

import.sh

#!/bin/bash

year=2019
URL=http://<burp>:2283/api
APIKEY=<burp>

printf "\n"
printf "### Importing for year - $year #################################################\n"
printf "\n"

docker run -it -v "$(pwd)":/import:ro -e IMMICH_INSTANCE_URL=$URL -e IMMICH_API_KEY=$APIKEY -e IMMICH_RECURSIVE=true -e IMMICH_UPLOAD_CONCURRENCY=5 ghcr.io/immich-app/immich-cli:latest upload $year/

touch ./log/$year-import.log

printf "\n"
printf "### Finished for year - $year ##################################################\n"
printf "\n"

run.sh

#!/bin/bash

usage()
{
    echo "usage: zzrun.sh -y year | [-h]"
}

runexportimport ()
{ 
    printf "\n"
    printf "### Exporting for year - $year #################################################\n"
    printf "\n"

    osxphotos export .  --touch-file --export-by-date --download-missing --use-photokit --exiftool --keyword-template "{label}" --sidecar XMP --update --from-date "$year-01-01" --to-date "$year-12-31" --save-config osxphotos.toml

    printf "\n"
    printf "### Importing for year - $year #################################################\n"
    printf "\n"

    docker run -it -v "$(pwd)":/import:ro -e IMMICH_INSTANCE_URL=$URL -e IMMICH_API_KEY=$APIKEY -e IMMICH_RECURSIVE=true -e IMMICH_UPLOAD_CONCURRENCY=5 ghcr.io/immich-app/immich-cli:latest upload $year/

    printf "\n"
    printf "### Finished for year - $year ##################################################\n"
    printf "\n"

    touch ./log/$year-import.log
}

##### Main

year=
URL=http://<burp>:2283/api
APIKEY=<burp>

if [ $# -eq 0 ]; then
    echo "Your command line contains no arguments"
    usage
    exit
fi

while [ "$1" != "" ]; do
    case $1 in
        -y | --year )       shift
                            year=$1
                            ;;
        -h | --help )       usage
                            exit
                            ;;
        * )                 usage
                            exit 1
    esac
    shift
done

runexportimport

All three scripts run the export/import tasks on a per-year basis, this is to allow me to easily batch the tasks (so I don’t put too much load on either my MacBook or NAS). The import/export scripts just have a script variable which I can set to the year I’m exporting/importing; the run script will take a year at the prompt and do both an export and import for that year.

Once the bulk of my photos are imported I then switch to using the Immich app on my phone to do incremental uploads direct from my photo library.

Immich Configuration

Immich has a fairly standard configuration, other than the changes made to support hardware transcoding and the external library I haven’t made any configuration changes from the defaults.

Backups

The current recommendation for keeping backups seems to be to try to follow the 3-2-1 backup rule, specifically:

  • 3 Copies of Your Data
    • Maintain three copies of your data: the original and two backups.
  • On 2 Different Media
    • Store these copies on two different types of media, such as a local hard drive and cloud storage.
  • With 1 Off-Site Copy
    • Keep at least one copy in a different physical location to protect against site-specific disasters.

With the above setup I believe I meet this, as I will have:

  • Local
    • One copy in Immich on my NAS
    • One copy on the USB HDD
  • Remote
    • One copy in iCloud

I know that strictly speaking this isn’t true 3-2-1 backup, as it’s different “versions” of the data (Immich vs flat-file vs cloud), but from the point of protecting the photos I will have 3 discreete copies of the files.

Posted/Updated on 16 May 2026

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© Paul Fisher 2026 / CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 / Disclaimer