Google Photos stopped being free in 2021. Apple iCloud charges $3/month for 200GB. Amazon Photos is Prime-only. Your memories shouldn't have a monthly subscription.
Immich is a self-hosted Google Photos replacement that's actually good. AI-powered search, face recognition, mobile auto-backup — everything you expect from Google Photos, running on your hardware.
What You Get Free
AGPL licensed, self-hosted:
- Mobile auto-backup — iOS and Android apps with background upload
- AI-powered search — search by content ("beach sunset", "dog playing")
- Face recognition — group photos by person, name them
- Timeline view — browse photos chronologically
- Albums — manual and smart albums
- Sharing — share albums with family, public links
- Map view — see where photos were taken
- RAW support — display and process camera RAW files
- Video support — transcode and stream videos
- Duplicate detection — find and remove duplicates
- External libraries — import existing photo folders
- OAuth — integrate with your identity provider
Quick Start
# Download docker-compose
wget https://github.com/immich-app/immich/releases/latest/download/docker-compose.yml
wget https://github.com/immich-app/immich/releases/latest/download/.env
wget https://github.com/immich-app/immich/releases/latest/download/hwaccel.ml.yml
# Configure .env (set upload location, DB password)
nano .env
docker compose up -d
Install the mobile app, point it to your server, enable auto-backup. Done.
What You Can Build
1. Family photo server — everyone backs up photos to one place. Shared albums for events.
2. Photography portfolio — host and share your work. No cloud dependency.
3. Photo archive — digitize old photos, search them with AI.
4. Business asset library — product photos, marketing images with AI tagging.
5. Memory backup — your photos, your server, forever. No subscription.
Need self-hosted infrastructure? Email spinov001@gmail.com
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