That’s how I’ve replaced Google Photos

Disclaimer: this is a translation from the original post in Spanish. A lot of links here (but not all) go to posts written in Spanish there, but there’s no need to read those. Not unless you want to practice your Spanish or use a translator ;) This long article has been translated with ChatGPT and edited for clarity.

People that have read me through the years in my blog at Incognitosis know that I have a special obsession for having my photos well organized. In recent years I have been trying different alternatives, and always with the same base:

Having my photos in the cloud is not my preferred option.

I know it is for most people. It’s normal. Google Photos is a fantastic and terrifying platform, and for those who use an iPhone the possibility of saving everything in iCloud and then working with Apple Photos is equally great. It’s first and foremost convenient, because you don’t have to worry about practically anything other than paying for that storage space. It’s a great option for a lot of people, and I think it’s perfect that it’s that way. Long live the options.

But I’m not really into that. I don’t want my photos swarming around. I’m not one to post them on social media — I’m an Instagram hater — and I don’t even like friends tagging me when they post a group photo.

I’m especially hysterical about photos of my kids: I don’t want them to be out there, and I’ve had the occasional family uproar over it. It’s inevitable that it happens from time to time — I make exceptions myself — but as I say, I try to minimize it.

Years of trying alternatives

In the past I’ve talked about those attempts to have my photo library well organized. In case someone wants to revisit them, the most relevant posts on the subject have been:

• What is the best online photo backup and access service? (December 2012): I was not at all clear on how to manage my photos, and asked how people did it. I was even considering whether to go to a cloud service, at least to back up my library.
• Not using Google is for the brave ones (April 2021): about alternatives such as PhotoPrism or Photostructure to set up your own Google Photos.
• Testing PhotoStructure: a candidate to be the Google Photos I control (April 2021): just below I talked about how I started testing Photostructure, which certainly had (and has) an original and great interface.
• How I’ve set up my own Google Photos (July 2022): here I explained my evolution when it comes to managing photos and told how I ended up opting for a proprietary but promising solution, a little gadget called Monument 2 with its own specific software for this task.
• Why spend 600 euros on a Synology NAS when you can get one for 200 (July 2023): how I built a miniPC with Xpenology, a Synology clone, to take advantage of Synology Photos.

I recommend reading the fourth one, because it was the first real attempt to solve my problem. It was also a post in which I recounted my history with photo management applications.

First attempts: from Picasa to Monument 2

For many years I used Picasa, the old Google application, on my Windows PC. For those of you who don’t know it, this tool was essentially a local Google Photos. The interface was crappier, yes, but its organization options were fantastic (with geotagging, for example) and it even implemented facial recognition to group people in the photos by faces. That’s quite surprising, as this could already be done in 2009. It was a fantastic application, but Google got rid of it to bet on its cloud services, specifically Google Photos.

I was never convinced about that cloud thing, so for several years I had the photos stored and classified by folder on my NAS (with the format “YYMMDD — Folder Description”) but without being able to see them comfortably. I installed the old version of Picasa on a PC and configured it so that the photos were centralized, and that offered me at least that alternative to access them from any computer that had Picasa installed on my local network. Synchronizing the photos from the mobile was not convenient, and from time to time I had to spend a few days copying them from the mobile to the PC, organizing them manually by folders and then leaving them on the NAS to update everything. It was quite crafty, but it worked.

But COVID-19 came and in Spain we were in confinement at home for around three months. We had enough time available because we were no longer going out, so my wife and I started to organize the photos, which we had a bit disorganized in several hard drives and folders scattered around. After several weeks of effort, we finally centralized everything into a single, massive folder. Inside, all the subfolders were properly organized and formatted as planned. That was an important step for what I wanted, which was precisely to find an alternative to Google Photos.

The search process went slowly, but in 2021 I thought I had found a great candidate with Photostructure. However, I never ended up mounting it on a PC or miniserver, mainly because the project was under development and many of its options were limited. Even worse, the features I found most interesting required payment. Something as simple as marking a photo as a favorite required a monthly or annual subscription. While the cost wasn’t particularly high ($42 per year), it still annoyed me. I thought to myself: for that price, I might as well pay for Google Photos and forget about the hassle.

So I kept searching, and in July 2022, I shared here that I had found a potential candidate: Monument 2. It was a very basic gadget built on a Raspberry Pi-like board with proprietary software that promised to handle everything seamlessly — or so its creators claimed when they launched it on Kickstarter. On paper, as with most Kickstarter projects, the idea sounded amazing. In practice, however, it had numerous issues. These ranged from problems with SSD drive compatibility to the software itself, which was unreliable and prone to erratic failures.

The interface was fantastic — very reminiscent of Apple Photos or Google Photos. The mobile app was super cool, too. However, as I mentioned, the performance was inconsistent. The worst part, though, was that the development team behind the project gradually abandoned it, barely saying a word. The forums on Kickstarter and Indiegogo make it painfully clear: many people who ordered the Monument 2 waited months and months to receive it. Technical issues rarely got a response, and the software updates were sparse and poorly executed, despite users submitting some genuinely interesting requests.

I did manage to get one of my suggestions implemented, though — a “Surprise Me” mode similar to PhotoStructure’s, which displays a random selection of photos at startup. But I suppose they didn’t sell as many units as they hoped (around 10,000, according to both crowdfunding platforms), and the team must have decided it wasn’t worth putting in more effort. A real shame.

Synology Photos: Almost Perfect

Over time, my frustration grew, so I started searching for alternatives. I discovered that both Synology and QNAP offered their own “Google Photos” solutions — Synology Photos and QuMagie, respectively. I seriously considered buying one of these NAS devices to take advantage of those options. Synology Photos especially appealed to me because its interface mimicked Apple Photos and Google Photos. The downside? I found their NAS devices prohibitively expensive.

After some research, I discovered I could build a DIY Synology NAS clone using the Xpenology project. That’s exactly what I did. It saved me a lot of money, and it worked as I expected. But even then, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing.

I’ll admit it — Synology Photos is great. It’s like a modern version of Picasa: it respects the folder structure I’ve already set up while also applying its own chronological organization by default. The mobile sync is excellent, and overall, I’d say the platform is nearly flawless.

However, two key issues eventually made me reconsider:

1. No Keyboard Shortcuts. While the web interface is fantastic, it lacks something crucial for me: keyboard shortcuts. This has been a frequent request in their official forums, yet basic actions like deleting a photo or marking it as a favorite require multiple mouse clicks. To delete a photo, for instance, you have to click on it, then click on the trash icon. To mark it as a favorite, you need to open the info panel and assign it a rating from one to five stars. Speaking of stars, while they’re a nice feature, they overcomplicate things. I’d prefer a simple heart or star to designate favorites — no need to split hairs over levels of favoritism.

1. Lackluster Android TV app. While viewing photos on a mobile device or computer works wonderfully via the Android/iOS app or web interface, things fall apart when you try to enjoy them on a TV. For me, this is essential — I love sitting down with my wife and the kids to revisit old photos together. Unfortunately, none of the apps I’ve tested, including Synology Photos, seem to handle this well. It does have an Android TV app, but it’s clear that this version has been neglected. Even though they hyped it up when they launched it in December 2022, there haven’t been any significant updates since then.

The biggest issue with the Synology Photos Android TV app? There’s no chronological navigation bar. If you want to jump to photos from, say, March 2013, there’s no quick way to do it. My library contains around 170,000 images and videos as of 2024, so scrolling to March 2013 would take — no exaggeration — minutes, maybe hours. There’s no search functionality to help either. What would a better solution look like? Something like this: [Insert user idea here].

But as it stands, the app feels abandoned, making it inconvenient to enjoy photos on the living room TV or projector. Sure, you could use the web browser on a TV, but then you’re back to the same issue: no keyboard shortcuts.

These frustrations drove me back to the drawing board, searching once again for a better solution. This time, I delved into the world of self-hosted photo management alternatives. What followed was a little adventure.

Hello, Unraid

The idea of setting up a new NAS to retire my old Synology DS-212j was still on my mind. While the Xpenology server wasn’t bad, the case I had bought wasn’t designed to accommodate multiple SSD or HDD. After spending some time reading and watching videos — NASCompares became one of my go-to YouTube channels — I discovered there were some really cool alternatives in this space, both for the case and the components.

To keep costs down, I decided not to invest in a new Mini-ITX motherboard, processor, or memory. Instead, I reused the ASRock J5040 motherboard and CPU I had used in my Xpenology build, focusing my budget on two key things: the case and storage. I bought a Jonsbo N2 case ($149.98 on Amazon), which I loved for its design and disk bay system, and three factory-refurbished HGST He10 10TB SATA drives — these come from data centers that periodically replace their drives. I already had a 4TB SSD that I planned to use for storing photos, so that part of the setup was sorted.

The Jonsbo N2, however, had one flaw: its fan was terrible. I knew this before buying it but also knew there was a fix. In a fantastic YouTube video, someone explained how to replace it with a Noctua NF-P12 fan, attaching it to the Jonsbo case using a mod: a small 3D-printed accessory to hold it securely in place. The video showcased the dramatic difference between the old fan’s hurricane-like noise and the near-silence of the replacement — a must for me.

I don’t own a 3D printer, but luckily, services like Imprimakers exist in Spain (there are lots of options everywhere). They’ll print any design you send them for a reasonable price (and with various material options). Two weeks later, I had the accessory in hand, and my Unraid machine was fully configured just the way I wanted.

Choosing the Platform

Next, I had to decide how to manage everything. Xpenology was an option, but I wanted to try something new. There are several platforms for setting up a multi-purpose home server, with the most popular being Unraid, TrueNAS (formerly FreeNAS), Proxmox, OpenMediaVault, and CasaOS. There are others, of course, but I narrowed my options to these and ultimately chose Unraid. I haven’t tested the others, so I can’t speak to their merits, but I liked Unraid — here’s a comprehensive FAQ — for its active community and long-standing reputation. It’s a paid platform (the Starter license, which I purchased for $49, allows up to six drives), but it had excellent reviews and inspired confidence.

Building the hardware was easy, but getting it up and running was a bit trickier. Unraid isn’t like Linux or Windows — it has its own learning curve. Thanks to the forums (which are great, thanks to responsive moderators), I was able to resolve my questions and set everything up over the following days.

Unraid uses storage pools where, from the user’s perspective, everything appears as a single, large file system. I opted for ZFS, both for the SSD (used separately) and for the “pool” with the three hard drives in RAIDZ1. This configuration uses two drives for storage and one for fault tolerance. If one drive fails, your data is safe, offering peace of mind — though Unraid developers make very clear that you should always have backups, as this platform isn’t designed to replace them.

Then began the long process of transferring all my data to the new NAS. My Synology DS-212j was still in use, but it was time to retire it. I took the opportunity to not only transfer the data to the Unraid machine but also to reorganize and delete some files that had become messy over the years. Among these were, of course, several photos and thousands of videos scattered across folders from past projects. This task took quite a bit of time — a couple of months, working on it here and there. I still have old hard drives stored in boxes that I plan to eventually dust off and migrate to the Unraid NAS. But for now, the main data transfer is complete.

Once the migration was done, I finally did something I’d been wanting to do for a long time: retire the Synology. I sold the NAS and its two 2TB drives (after securely wiping them — I wrote about the process on Xataka). This helped recover part of the investment I made in the new case, hard drives, and other components.

Exploring Unraid’s App Store

Now the fun part could begin. One of the best features of Unraid is its vast library of “community applications,” which are essentially preconfigured Docker containers. You can browse the “store,” pick what you want, and install it with a few clicks (well, almost). Think of it as an App Store for self-hosted apps, letting you set up a server for just about anything.

The possibilities are endless, and what’s great about Unraid is how effectively it leverages Docker. It’s like having 30 or 100 mini-servers in one. Each container operates as an independent server while sharing your hardware resources. Even with my modest motherboard and CPU, the performance was excellent as long as I didn’t push it too far.

At first, I got carried away, installing tons of things I hardly use now. For example, I tried setting up a Jellyfin server (a popular alternative to Plex, which I also tested but didn’t love). While Jellyfin has some nice features, the performance — partly due to my hardware — wasn’t ideal. I ended up sticking with Kodi on the Chromecasts around my house, pulling content from this NAS. For me, it’s still primarily a file server, like my old Synology NAS. But the real task was just beginning: finding the Google Photos alternative that would finally win me over.

A World of Possibilities

During this time, I already had a rough idea of which self-hosted alternatives to Google Photos I wanted to try. There’s a wide variety of projects in this space, and I looked into some interesting comparisons, such as the following ones:

• Rair-dev
• MeichThys
• LibrePhotos wiki
• Ars Technica

Some, like the Ars Technica comparison, are a bit outdated but still relevant in general terms, as there haven’t been significant new entrants in recent years. So, I narrowed my options to a small group of strong candidates to become my self-hosted Google Photos replacement.

I quickly ruled some out after reading about them on their websites or testing their demos (if available). I tried others on my Unraid machine to see how they performed and whether one could be “the one.” Over the past few weeks/months, I’ve conducted these tests bit by bit, and here’s the result: a brief comparison of what I found most notable about these options.

Piwigo

Piwigo (GitHub) is more ambitious and established, making it a potential choice for massive photo collections. It offers various demos and boasts numerous features — batch editing, albums, calendar-based organization, themes, geolocation, and multi-user support. I considered giving it a serious try.

However, I was looking for a functional Google Photos alternative, which meant chronological organization was a must. Piwigo doesn’t focus on this (at least as I understood it). Its organization is more tag-based, with date information taking a backseat. It feels more like a super-gallery than the kind of photo manager I was seeking.

Photonix

Photonix (GitHub) is too basic, with limited features and no interface focused on chronological order. It uses machine learning to analyze objects, colors, and faces, which is intriguing.

However, it seems more like an experimental project with limitations. It could be useful as a starting point for other developments but is far from being a Google Photos replacement.

Lychee

Lychee (GitHub) is another project similar to Photonix, offering minimal features. It’s suitable only for viewing your photos in a gallery format.

It lacks chronological organization — everything is album-based — and doesn’t include basic functionality like marking photos as favorites. While it might be interesting for small projects, it’s not a viable Google Photos alternative for me.

Photoview

Photoview (GitHub) has a somewhat simplistic interface — perhaps too minimalist — but it does adopt Google Photos’ ideas for chronological arrangement.

It allows you to mark favorites and view photo information, but only from the thumbnail view. In slideshow mode, you can only see the photos themselves, which feels odd. It supports geolocation, has a mobile app (a definite plus), and features facial recognition, but the project is still in its early stages, with the creator inviting community contributions.

LibrePhotos

LibrePhotos (GitHub) was one of the projects I tested on my Unraid machine and initially seemed the most promising. I liked its interface, which borrows ideas from Google Photos and Apple Photos, focusing heavily on chronological order. For example, the scroll bar that appears when hovering on the right side is fantastic for quickly navigating your photo timeline.

However, things went wrong for me. Importing my photo library took forever. While imports were slow on PhotoPrism or PhotoStructure too, LibrePhotos took at least twice as long. Additionally, the interface was consistently sluggish.

Installing it on Unraid wasn’t straightforward either. It’s not available as a container in Unraid’s “App Store,” so the process was a bit manual. This also means future updates have to be managed outside of Unraid’s interface, which usually makes everything simple but didn’t help here. It’s inconvenient.

The project demo runs flawlessly, and I was excited, thinking I’d found the perfect solution. But in practice, things didn’t go well for me. Even logging into LibrePhotos was a struggle, requiring significant effort. Clearly, I did something wrong because, on paper, LibrePhotos seems like one of the most promising alternatives to Google Photos.

Nextcloud Photos

I’ve been using Nextcloud on a VPS for years to experiment and store things I don’t want in, say, Google Docs. So trying out Nextcloud Photos (web, GitHub) seemed like a natural step.

The interface is decent, with chronological organization, categorization of photos and videos, the ability to mark them as favorites, and even an “On This Day” feature showing photos from the same day years ago.

I only tested it briefly since it wasn’t my top candidate. While researching, I found there are additional plugins like Imaginary and Preview Generator that improve web preview performance, which isn’t particularly fast by default. There’s also a plugin called Recognize for NextCloud that enables AI-based facial recognition — a feature that sounds intriguing.

However, marking photos as favorites is cumbersome. You must open a side panel, which also grants access to comments and sharing options. This feels counterintuitive. Marking a favorite should be quick — like a keyboard shortcut (e.g., “F”) or a simple mouse click on a heart or star icon.

Interestingly, there’s a parallel project to Nextcloud Photos called Memories, a Nextcloud app. I discovered it recently and didn’t install it, but its demo shows it fixes some Nextcloud Photos shortcomings, such as easier favorite marking. It also integrates a metadata editor (ideal for fixing incorrect photo dates) and a robust information viewer with geolocation support. If you’re using Nextcloud, I’d recommend giving it a try.

Nextcloud Photos does have one standout feature: one of the best integrated editors I’ve seen in tools like this. It offers a good selection of filters, drawing and text-adding tools, and adjustments for brightness, contrast, and warmth. This was a pleasant surprise.

Nextcloud has another advantage: a mobile app with perfect photo syncing from your phone to the server. As a private cloud backup solution, it excels. However, as a photo management tool, its interface doesn’t quite win me over. While it might work well for many people, it’s not “pretty enough” for my taste.

Plex Photos

In September 2024, Plex announced Plex Photos, an app for iOS, Android, and web that allows you to store photos on your Plex Media Server.

Currently in beta, it’s an interesting option if you use Plex intensively. It offers three organization modes (Recommended, Timeline, and Library), and while you can mark photos as favorites, the process feels a bit clunky.

The web version (not Android) includes a “Random” button in Timeline and Library modes, launching a slideshow of random photos — a quirky feature. Since the app also supports music playback, you can even create photo playlists, which is unconventional but intriguing.

After experimenting with the app, I found it designed primarily for slideshow-style photo viewing. It has neat features, like displaying a filmstrip of photos below the main image in view. Marking favorites can be done from the thumbnail view, which is a nice touch. Overall, it seems promising and likely to improve over time.

Plex Photos benefits from Plex’s native apps for Android and iOS, which make mobile content access seamless. However, it lacks a native Android TV version — a limitation shared by many platforms.

I tried sideloading the Android APK onto my Chromecast with Google TV, but it was a disaster. It barely worked, and navigating the interface was a pain. For now, it’s not suited for this kind of setup. Even so, it’s a fun option. While I’m not a heavy Plex user despite having it installed on my Unraid server, I’ll keep an eye on its development.

Photoprism

Photoprism (GitHub) is a serious Google Photos alternative. I tested it thoroughly by installing the Docker container on my Unraid machine and uploading my entire photo library to explore its capabilities. The range of features is impressive, with numerous options that stand out.

Oddly, there’s no integrated editor for basic functions like cropping, rotating, or tone adjustment. However, it includes a detailed (and fantastic) EXIF editor, letting you adjust tags, identify people, modify additional properties, and even rate photo quality.

A critical note: Photoprism seems overly focused on organization, tagging, and classification rather than on viewing and enjoying photos. For example, you can mark a photo as a favorite, but there’s also a quality rating system with star rankings. While it’s great to have options, this can feel excessive.

One major drawback for me is the interface. Although it supports themes and customization, this requires extra effort. Even with customization, I found the interface overwhelming. Displaying so much information by default on each photo feels unnecessary — I just want to see the thumbnail. Yes, there’s a “grid view” that omits this information, but it feels too puzzle-like for my liking.

Additionally, the lack of a true “timeline” view, like Google Photos, is disappointing. The calendar view merely groups photos by month, which doesn’t appeal to me.

Photoprism is exceptional if you want your photos meticulously organized and tagged. But if your goal is to enjoy your photos, its less attractive, more utilitarian interface might not be the best fit. Personally, it feels like using Photoprism is more about managing than enjoying photos — a very subjective impression, but one I can’t shake.

PhotoStructure

I’m a big fan of PhotoStructure (GitHub), mainly because it’s a unique and distinct alternative to Google Photos. While chronological organization is important, what initially caught my attention was the random photo grid displayed as the default view — a fun and refreshing way to explore your photo library.

PhotoStructure has long been a strong contender as my primary photo management platform. I wrote about it back in 2021, and even then, its speed impressed me — both on PC and mobile devices (via a web browser, as there are no native apps). However, the lack of apps isn’t a big deal for me.

That said, its chronological organization feels a bit odd. The focus on random grids shapes the entire experience. There’s no straightforward day-by-day organization, from newest to oldest, which is what I prefer. Instead, you navigate by selecting a year and then a month. While the monthly grids are ordered, they feel cluttered and lack breathing room. The interface can feel cramped.

The free version of PhotoStructure offers basic functionality, but the Plus version, priced at $5/month or $42/year, adds features like facial recognition, automatic organization, and the ability to mark favorites — arguably essential features. While the subscription cost is reasonable, I still see restricting favorites as a low blow.

These quirks, combined with a somewhat cramped interface, made me consider other options. I still have PhotoStructure set up and occasionally use it. The effort behind it is commendable, and the developer, Matthew, is deeply invested in the project. He’s very responsive on the support forums and open to suggestions, which is great to see. However, it’s not the perfect solution for me.

Ente

My latest discovery in this space is Ente (web, GitHub), a project that went open-source in March 2024 after being a paid-only service for a long time.

Ente is impressive. There’s a hosted version with a free plan offering 5 GB of storage, along with various paid plans depending on your storage needs. Alternatively, you can self-host it using the downloadable code, as detailed in their documentation. Some users are even working on Dockerfiles to simplify installation via Docker, though I haven’t tried that option myself.

I tested the macOS desktop version, which functions similarly to Apple Photos. You can import folders and individual photos, and the app organizes them chronologically. The interface is fantastic — clean, elegant, and intuitive, with the expected view where newer photos appear at the top and older ones at the bottom. However, the desktop app currently only supports dark mode. While a light theme is promised, it’s currently exclusive to the mobile apps.

The tool offers standard features like marking photos as favorites, viewing EXIF metadata, and geolocation (using OpenStreetMap, which is a nice touch). It also includes a basic editor for cropping, brightness, contrast, and saturation adjustments.

What truly sets Ente apart is its ambitious focus on encryption. All photos and metadata are end-to-end encrypted, ensuring only the user can access them. The Ente team proudly highlights their encryption architecture, which indeed seems robust. This emphasis on privacy and security is especially appealing. Beyond photos, Ente offers other apps like Auth — a Google Authenticator-like tool that can also be self-hosted. It’s an intriguing ecosystem.

The Photos app also includes additional features like privately sharing albums, allowing others to contribute photos (even non-Ente users), sharing photos via private links, and more. However, it currently lacks facial or object recognition capabilities. The search functionality is fairly basic, focusing on file and folder names.

Overall, Ente stands out for its elegant interface, strong privacy features, and thoughtful design. While its search and recognition tools are limited, it’s a solid choice, especially for users prioritizing security and a clean user experience.

Other Options

In this general overview, I also wanted to mention a few other projects. While they didn’t meet my main priorities, they might be useful for specific scenarios:

Lychee (web, GitHub, demo): Lychee is charming but overly simplistic. It’s essentially just a photo viewer without much else going on. Its interface, as seen in the demo, is neat and lets you group photos in various formats. However, it’s very limited in features. For example, I couldn’t find options for creating albums or marking favorites. It also lacks a calendar view. This makes it an interesting choice for small-scale projects — like organizing photos from a trip — but not much more than that.

Chevereto (web): If you’re a fan of Imgur and dream of setting up your own version, Chevereto might be right for you. It’s designed to create a gallery where chronological order isn’t the focus — instead, it emphasizes user interaction, such as votes and views (more “likes” equals more visibility). While it’s a valid option, it’s just not my cup of tea.

Photo-stream (web): This project is heavily geared toward creating visually appealing galleries, though it doesn’t go beyond that. The resulting interface is sleek and seems to perform smoothly.

Home-Gallery (web): Another gallery-focused project that at least offers yearly classification. However, it’s still limited for the more comprehensive features I was looking for.

Photofield (web): Then there are absolutely unique projects like Photofield, which don’t suit my needs but are undeniably fascinating. This one is almost an experiment. Its goal? To display as many photos as possible on-screen by zooming out. The result, at least based on the demo, is stunning.

Damselfly (web): Its interface, inspired by the legendary Picasa, seemed like a bit of a nightmare to me, so I didn’t even try it out. However, it does look intriguing. It features facial, object, and color recognition, making it highly focused on finding photos with various search parameters.

Snapcrescent (web): This one feels like a fork of Immich with a strong mobile orientation. I haven’t tried it, and its demo isn’t working either, but it looks interesting if you want to check it out.

And the Winner Is… Immich

If I recall correctly, I discovered Immich over a year ago while still using Xpenology and relying on Synology Photos, which seemed like an almost perfect solution at the time. Immich is a relatively new project — its first public release, version v0.2-dev, appeared on GitHub in February 2022. However, its evolution has been rapid — almost too rapid, with new version notifications popping up constantly. By the time I found out about it, Immich was already positioning itself as a full-fledged alternative to Google Photos, with that goal clearly at its core: to be the alternative to Google Photos.

The inspiration from Google’s platform is unmistakable, most notably in the interface, which is essentially a shameless (and excellent) copy of what Google Photos offers. Immich is available in several formats, but I took advantage of its inclusion in the Unraid “app store” to install it on my server. I followed the advice in these videos (Part 1, Part 2) from Spaceinvader One, a popular channel among Unraid users.

At first, I got a bit confused configuring the paths to my photo library. Immich has a peculiarity that could trip up some users: it creates its own photo library from your existing photos. You might already have a directory with thousands of folders organized your way, but when you import them, Immich builds its own directory structure under /photos. I initially thought this was where my photos were stored—turns out it’s a separate directory where Immich generates folders and copies of your photos with unrecognizable filenames.

This means that if your original library is 2 TB, you’ll need another 2 TB for Immich’s library. However, there’s an upside: Immich doesn’t touch your original photos, which remain “safe” from any changes you make in Immich. While this could be a drawback (e.g., if you delete duplicates or bad photos in Immich, those changes won’t sync to your original library), I see it as more of a benefit than a drawback.

It’s worth noting that Immich now offers an option to work with your existing photo library as an external library, bypassing the duplication. I found this approach a bit daunting and risky, so I stuck with the default method, especially since my NAS had plenty of storage space.

Importing Photos: Immich’s Secret Weapon

Immich comes equipped with powerful photo-import tools. I used Immich-Go, which I found sensational, though there’s also the Immich CLI. Immich-Go can import standard libraries while maintaining the folder structure from your original library. Even better, it can import photos from Google Photos. While this wasn’t my case, many users download their Google Photos library via Google Takeout and then use Immich-Go to import it. The tool supports various parameters, and while it might seem daunting at first, it works wonderfully for migrating from Google Photos to Immich.

Machine Learning Options

Immich also includes facial recognition and other machine learning (ML) features that can be enabled during import. However, many recommend avoiding these options unless you have a high-performance machine with a powerful GPU. My modest Unraid setup wasn’t up to the task, so I skipped it. That said, Immich offers an incredible feature: Remote Machine Learning, which allows you to offload ML tasks to another device on your local network. For a “relatively small” application, this is mind-blowing.

Immich boasts exceptional documentation and an active user community on GitHub, Discord, and Reddit. This not only helps iron out bugs but also ensures the platform keeps improving. The community has even created fascinating add-ons like Immich Kiosk, an app for displaying your photos in kiosk mode on devices or browsers.

While Immich-Go is excellent, it’s not perfect. I encountered issues with the metadata of some photos, causing them to appear out of chronological order. This was rare, though — 95% of the time, it worked flawlessly. (In my case, the problems likely stemmed from the size of my library and poor metadata in older photos.) Even so, I imported a massive library: 140,000 photos and 19,000 videos, totaling 1.6 TB.

A Highly Visual, Chronological Focus

Immich’s chronological organization is superb. The photo mosaic adapts dynamically to portrait or landscape formats, making it visually appealing and easy to browse. A calendar sidebar allows you to jump to specific dates quickly, making navigation nearly unbeatable.

The photo viewer includes shortcuts for sharing, zooming, and viewing photo information, but what sets it apart are two rare features: mark as favorite and move to trash. Even better, these can be done with simple keyboard shortcuts: press F to favorite a photo or Delete to send it to the trash.

A Nostalgic and Thoughtful Home Screen

Immich’s home screen displays photos in reverse chronological order, with a bonus section at the top: “X Years Ago”, showcasing memories from the same day in past years. While nostalgic and fun, this feature can be bittersweet — thankfully, it can be disabled in the app’s preferences.

Immich supports multiple users, custom CSS designs, and server configuration for remote access. You can even set it up to work like Google Photos, accessible from anywhere. While I prefer local access for security reasons, I’m considering alternatives like Tailscale, which reportedly offers secure and easy remote access.

Smart Search and Machine Learning Magic

Immich’s search function is phenomenal. Beyond filename searches, it supports semantic search — type “mountains,” “ocean,” or even a color like “orange,” and it finds relevant photos. This feature is a standout.

The facial recognition system is also effective. I don’t use it often, but it’s been invaluable when I’ve needed to locate photos of a specific person.

Seamless Mobile Integration

Adding new photos is effortless, whether through the web interface or Immich’s mobile apps for Android and iOS. Automatic uploads are easy to configure, and as soon as I return home, my server updates within minutes (or longer if I’ve been on vacation with hundreds of new photos).

Immich is a stunningly capable platform, full of thoughtful details and advanced features. While it’s not perfect, its strengths far outweigh its weaknesses, making it a phenomenal alternative to Google Photos.

It’s 2025, and There’s Still No Good Way to Enjoy Photos on TV

Immich’s mobile apps are quite decent, but unfortunately, here lies Immich’s one major flaw: there’s no proper native app for Android TV.

There is at least one third-party solution, but when I tried it a while back, it didn’t work well, and it hasn’t been updated in three months. The remaining options, as in similar cases, are:

1. Use a web browser, or
2. Mirror your phone screen and use it as a remote while displaying the photos on your TV.

The latter option doesn’t work well for me because the resolution and quality of the photos drop significantly. In my opinion, the browser is a much better alternative. At home, we actually revisit old photos of the kids when they were little by directly connecting a laptop to the TV. It’s not “elegant,” but it works and lets us enjoy the photo library as a family.

The lack of native Android TV clients for Immich and other apps is undoubtedly the major downside in this segment. Being able to manage your photo library comfortably from your TV would be fantastic. Navigating through a timeline is rarely easy or even possible (as I mentioned with Synology Photos), and Immich faces the same issue. Additionally, I’d love to assign specific buttons on the Chromecast remote (in my case) to mark a photo as a favorite or send it to the trash easily — maybe by holding one of the buttons for two seconds.

Immich Is Still My Favorite Google Photos Alternative

Aside from that limitation, Immich remains my favorite alternative to Google Photos. There are other strong contenders, I admit:

• PhotoPrism is extremely powerful.
• Nextcloud Memories is intriguing.
• Ente also seems very promising if they can simplify the installation process.

And, of course, there’s Synology Photos, but it requires buying a Synology NAS — expensive but solid devices — or setting up an Xpenology system, as I did. All in all, I hope this (lengthy) post helps you decide if you’re considering doing something similar!