Looking for a self-hosted alternative to Google Photos, Apple iCloud Photos, or Amazon Photos? Immich is a fast, open-source all-in-one photo and video management solution that you can run on your own hardware. It supports automatic backups from your phone, facial recognition, geotagging, and a full web app. The officially recommended way to run it in production is with Docker Compose.
In this guide I’ll show you how to install Immich on a home server with Docker in a few minutes.
What is Immich?
Immich is a self-hosted web and mobile application for managing your photos and videos. Think of it as your own Google Photos: your phone automatically backs up your camera roll to your server, and you get a polished interface to browse, search and organise everything. Key features include:
- Automatic, resumable backups from the official Android / iOS apps
- Facial recognition, object detection and geotagging
- Web, mobile and desktop clients
- Shared albums and multi-user support
- Free and open source (AGPL v3)
Prerequisites
Before you start, make sure your server has:
- Docker and Docker Compose installed
- Enough free disk space for your photo/video library
- The port
2283free (this is where the web app will be served)
Step 1 – Download the required files
Create a directory to hold the configuration files and move into it:
mkdir ./immich-app
cd ./immich-appDownload the latest docker-compose.yml and .env files from the official Immich releases:
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.envYou can also grab these two files from your browser and move them into the directory – just make sure to rename example.env to .env.
Step 2 – Edit the .env file
Open .env in a text editor. There are a few values worth changing before you start:
UPLOAD_LOCATION– where your uploaded files are stored. Point this at a fresh directory with plenty of free space (default./library).DB_DATA_LOCATION– where the Postgres database files live (default./postgres). Network shares are not supported for the database, so keep it on local storage.DB_PASSWORD– change this to a random value. Postgres is not exposed to the internet, so this is only used for local authentication. Use onlyA-Za-z0-9characters –pwgenis handy for generating one.TZ– uncomment the line and set your timezone, e.g.TZ=Europe/Rome(see the IANA time zone list).IMMICH_VERSION– leave asv3for the latest, or pin a specific version such asv2.1.0.
Everything below the marker line in the file (database username, database name) can stay as-is.
Step 3 – Start the containers
From the immich-app directory, start Immich as a background service:
docker compose up -dDocker will pull the images and start the server, database, and ML containers. The first run can take a few minutes while the images download.
Post-installation
Once the containers are up, open the web app at http://<server-ip>:2283 and click Getting Started. The first user you register automatically becomes the admin account. From there you can:
- Create additional user accounts (Administration → Users → Create user)
- Configure the storage template for how files are organised on disk (Administration → Settings → Storage Template)
- Set up automatic backups from the mobile app
Install the official mobile app from the App Store or Google Play, sign in with the server endpoint http://<server-ip>:2283, and enable backup on the albums you want to sync.
Next steps
- Read the official post-installation guide for backup strategies, external libraries and hardware acceleration.
- Follow the upgrade instructions when a new version is released.
- Set up server backups – a 3-2-1 strategy (multiple local copies plus one offsite) is strongly recommended so a single drive failure never costs you your memories.
That’s it – you now have a fully self-hosted photo and video manager running on your own hardware, with no cloud in the middle.
Official docs: docs.immich.app/install/docker-compose
