I have a particular obsession to have my photos well organized. As I have been fighting with this for a few years, I have tried a good handful of solutions, and for example I enjoyed Picasa –Google killed him, like Reader– And I also tried solutions like Synology photos Following the steps From my partner Alejandro Nieto.
The goal has always been the same: Google photos of Googlea service that is wonderful but that like other services in the cloud, it worries me because I don’t know what my photos can be used. They assure They are not used for advertising purposes, but can be used to improve their automatic learning algorithms in image recognition.
A custom nas
The cloud is fantastic in many things and for many users, but as I say, I preferred to mount it at my home. Recently I counted this whole search process and tests in more detail in my blogand now I wanted to take advantage of it also in Xataka. About a year ago looking for new alternatives, and to achieve a decision I rode a nas With 30 hard drive, 4 TB of SSD and a modest plate and processor because it sought more efficiency than power.
My NAS, in a Jonsbo N2 box with hard drives bays.
There was also detailed research process to choose the operating system with which to control everything. There are many and varied options for NAS, although I would say that among the most prominent are unraid, thunder (formerly Freenes), proxmox, OpenMediavault or Casaos.
After documenting, reading and watching videos I ended up deciding on Unraida very veteran and respected project. The “Starter” license costs 49 dollars and is valid for machines with up to six disk units, and I thought it was very good option.
Putting everything in motion took some time: this is not like installing Windows on a PC, and I also wanted to have a very specific configuration to use the ZFS file system for the three hard disk units configured in Raidz (Raidz1 ), Something that when I settled I had just started to be available in Unraid.
Solved that, I migrated all the data of my old NAS, an old Synology DS-212J who gave me many joys but that began to fall short in many things. That also took time, because I wanted to take the opportunity to reorganize the small chaos in which some folders that had used almost as “digital storages” had become.
Testing alternatives to Google photos
Once that was resolved, I could start trying different alternatives to manage my photos. Here Unraid is especially wonderful, because it allows (like other systems for NAS, certainly) to assemble services separately and easily isolated, especially thanks to Docker.
UNRAID’s “App Store” with the different types of autosted services that you can install on your server at click.
That makes you become 5, 10 or 100 servers. Those you want and those that your hardware allows, of course. And the same with virtual machines, that I do not use just but that are an equally interesting option to get your server more. I have ended up installing about 15 servers in my nas, although the vast majority are usually deactivated.
Be that as it may, Unraid has its own “App Store”and in it there are dozens and dozens of possible services that you can ride on your server to run them from there and have your own cloud essence with your local services. There are alternatives for almost everything that exists on the Internet: you can mount your email, music, your web server, download, databases, or, of course … photos.
And this is where it was time to try alternatives that seemed interesting and on which I had already investigated. Others met them along the way, but thanks to Unraid and Docker’s magic starting these alternatives is a matter of minutes. Then, of course, there is an import process of the photos – if you have many, that can take to days – but I reduced the import to a small subset of photos for the tests.
First of all, I must say that what is clear is that in this field there is everything, and for all. The options are very varied both in their reach and in their way of “attacking” the problem, but I had certain priorities. In essence I wanted a good alternative to Google photos that inherited its virtues (interface, chronological organization, favorite management, perhaps facial and object recognition).
Photosyructure is an original, different and very powerful alternative.
That made some projects quickly discard that they did not fit me but that can be great for many users. Among them were Piwigo, Photonix, Chevereto, Damselfly, Lycheeeither PhotoViewbut there are certainly more.
The thing however interesting with Some really serious and very striking alternatives. I had already tried Photosyructure And I loved his interface with that first page of random photo team, but they did not fit their favorite management (subscription to enable that option) or its interface, which is not focused on the chronological order.
LIBHOTOS I looked great, but it was not easily installed (I was not in the “App Store” of Unraid) and gave me many problems, probably because I did something wrong when riding it. I also tried NextCloud Photos, curious option if you are already users of NextCloud Photos and its improved version, Memoriesbut the interface and some options were not entirely fine.
The one who really put things difficult was Photoprismone of the most popular options among those looking for alternatives to Google photos. His options are extraordinary, and the only thing that really backed down is that it seems to me an option that focuses more on organizing your photos (the power here is amazing) than to enjoy them. The interface did not fall in love either, but it always remained as a great candidate if other options did not convince me anymore. I finally discovered a candidate called Entity With an especially nice interface, but that had no direct image in Unraid, which ended up making it discard it because I preferred to have a well integrated solution in Unraid.
And then the solution came.
Immich, what a wonder
I met this project a long time ago, and when I began to consider looking for alternatives, I was always one of the ones I was clear about that I wanted to try. I did so, and the truth is that Immich He conquered me from the first moment.
On the left Google photos, to the right Immich.
And he did it because he is precisely intended for those who want Enjoy all the good of Google photos, but without using Google Photos.
The interface is in fact an almost accurate copy, something that especially facilitates its use, but also those responsible for the project already offer first two different tools (Immich Cli and Immich -gowhich is what I used) to “take” everything you had in Google photos (thanks to Google Takeout) and then import it in Immich.
These tools are not perfect and there may be small errors. I suffered them with the metadata of the dates in some photos, but taking into account that my photo library consists of about 140,000 photos and 20,000 videos, the thing was not too serious (and at this point it has already been solved).
Migration takes time, but the indexation of all those photos takes even longer. In my case, about 10 or 12 days That I simply let Immich do his job to generate miniatures, chronological order or his own facial recognition and objects.
In the upper part, the ephemeris, which are always curious. The chronological organization rules.
After that time, I found an absolutely fantastic platform that allowed me to do everything I wanted. I love the interface, the chronological organization is perfect, and the management and organization options in folders and users are also excellent. That there are Keyboard shortcuts To score a photo quickly as a favorite (key f) or delete it (Supr key) also allowed me to access those “dumb” options that other applications do not have.
The synchronization of photos with the mobile is transparent and very simple, and although the mobile application is great, I found here with the big problem of all these solutions. Not only Immich: None has a decent application for Android TV / Google TV.
Immich for Android TV has good intentions, but too many limitations.
Immich has, in addition to the Android/iOS app, one for Android TVbut their options are much more limited. The navigation does not offer a quick displacement bar like the one you have on desk and Android/iOS, so if you want to see a relatively old photo it is time to lower and download with the command (like my chromecast) for minutes.
It is also not comfortable to mark photos as favorites or delete them from that interface, and in general the user experience is bad. I repeat: I have not found any platform that has a good app for Android TVand I ended up connecting the laptop to a TV to enjoy the photos with the family in the living room, for example. An important improvement opportunity here for any tool of this type.
Immich also offers an upper section on the home page with photos of “X years” that allow you to enjoy those ephemeris (this option can be deactivated), and from there you can do a lot of things. Among them of course, allow access to your Immich server from the outside, something that can be done of various methods but that I have never decided to do to avoid scares. I must say that there is a bit (quite) of my personal paranoia, because the current solutions (such as Tailscale or Cloudflare Tunnel) are theoretically very safe.
Immich looking for orange things in my photo library.
There is another fantastic element of Immich in my opinion, and that is that of its search engine. It can work in normal mode, through file names (if you remember the name of a photo, for example), but also has a semantic mode. If you ask for photos of mountains or sea or other concepts – for example, the “orange” color – shows photos that are actually related to that search. Here the automatic learning system (Machine Learning) is prodigious.
Immich of course has more options, so I encourage you to try it and to find out more about the project both in your forum and the subrreddit dedicated to it. Without a doubt, a whole discovery that I hope will continue to accompany me a long time.
In Xataka | How to create your own Google photos on the computer in the easiest and most economical way possible