How to Self-Host Immich: Your Private Google Photos Alternative

Google Photos works well. It’s free, syncs reliably, and finds photos when you search. But your entire visual history sits on Google’s servers—faces, locations, events, relationships. All of it.

Immich gives you the same core features—automatic backup, face recognition, smart search—on hardware you control. About $5/month for a VPS. Your photos stay yours.

This guide gets you running in 20 minutes.

What Immich Actually Is

Immich is open-source photo and video backup software. You run it on your own server (or home machine). It handles:

Automatic phone backup (iOS and Android)
Local AI face recognition
Object/scene detection
Map view with GPS clustering
Shared albums
Full-text search
RAW support
Timeline view

The project started in 2022 and releases updates regularly. v1.118.0 is current as of April 2026.

The Real Trade-off

Factor	Google Photos	Immich Self-Hosted
Data ownership	Google	You
AI training	Your photos train Google’s models	Local models only
Storage cost	Free (compressed) or $20/year/100GB	~$5/month VPS
Face recognition	Google’s servers process faces	Local processing
Location data	Feeds Google Maps	Stays on your server
Maintenance	None	You manage updates

You trade convenience for control. Whether that’s worth it depends on your threat model.

What You’ll Need

Hardware:

4 CPU cores (ARM64 or x86)
8GB RAM minimum, 12GB recommended
100GB+ SSD storage

Why so much RAM? The AI features (face recognition, object detection) run ML models locally. They need memory.

Software:

Docker and Docker Compose
A domain name (optional but recommended)
Basic Linux command line comfort

Step 1: Server Setup

SSH into your server and update:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

Install Docker:

curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com -o get-docker.sh
sudo sh get-docker.sh
sudo usermod -aG docker $USER
newgrp docker

Verify Docker works:

docker --version

Step 2: Docker Compose Setup

Create a directory:

mkdir ~/immich && cd ~/immich

Download the official compose file (v1.118.0):

wget https://github.com/immich-app/immich/releases/latest/download/docker-compose.yml

Download the example environment file:

wget -O .env https://github.com/immich-app/immich/releases/latest/download/example.env

Step 3: Configure Environment

Edit .env:

nano .env

Set these values:

# Database
DB_PASSWORD=your_secure_random_password

# Storage
UPLOAD_LOCATION=./library

# Server URL (change to your domain)
PUBLIC_IMMICH_SERVER_URL=https://photos.yourdomain.com

Generate a strong password:

openssl rand -base64 32

Step 4: Start Immich

Launch:

docker compose up -d

Check if containers are running:

docker ps

You should see: immich_server, immich_microservices, immich_machine_learning, redis, and postgres.

View logs if something fails:

docker logs immich_server -f

Wait for “Immich Server is listening” before proceeding.

Step 5: Initial Configuration

Access your instance at http://YOUR_SERVER_IP:2283.

First-run setup:

Create admin account
Set thumbnail quality (I use 720p for web, original for archive)
Enable machine learning features
Configure backup settings

Step 6: Add SSL with Nginx

For production, use a reverse proxy. Install Nginx:

sudo apt install nginx certbot python3-certbot-nginx -y

Create config:

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/immich

Add:

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name photos.yourdomain.com;

    client_max_body_size 50000M;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://localhost:2283;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection 'upgrade';
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
        proxy_cache_bypass $http_upgrade;
    }
}

Enable and add SSL:

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/immich /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
sudo nginx -t
sudo systemctl reload nginx
sudo certbot --nginx -d photos.yourdomain.com

Step 7: Mobile App Setup

Download:

iOS: App Store
Android: Play Store or F-Droid

Configuration:

Server URL: https://photos.yourdomain.com
Login with your admin credentials
Enable auto-backup (WiFi-only recommended)
Select albums to backup

The app backs up in background. First sync takes time depending on library size.

AI Features: What Actually Works

Once photos are uploaded:

Face Recognition Groups faces automatically. You name people, it finds more. Accuracy is good, not perfect. Works entirely offline.

Object Detection Search “dog”, “beach”, “birthday”—it finds matches. Sometimes misses, sometimes false positives. Useful but not magic.

CLIP Search Natural language search. “Sunset at beach” actually works surprisingly well. Depends on model quality.

Map View Photos clustered by GPS. Useful for travel memories. Requires location data in EXIF.

Storage Reality Check

Immich stores:

Original files (largest)
Thumbnails (configurable quality)
Web-optimized videos
Face recognition database
Search index

Rule of thumb: Budget 1.5-2x your raw photo storage. 100GB of photos = 150-200GB on server.

Cost optimization:

Use external storage (S3, Wasabi) for originals
Keep thumbnails local for speed
Set up automatic deletion of originals after backup verification

Backing Up Immich Itself

Your photos aren’t safe without backups. Immich stores data in two places:

Upload directory (./library by default)
PostgreSQL database

Backup script:

#!/bin/bash
DATE=$(date +%Y%m%d)
BACKUP_DIR=/backup/immich

# Backup database
docker exec immich_postgres pg_dump -U postgres immich > $BACKUP_DIR/db-$DATE.sql

# Backup library
tar czf $BACKUP_DIR/library-$DATE.tar.gz ~/immich/library

# Keep only last 7 days
find $BACKUP_DIR -name "*.sql" -mtime +7 -delete
find $BACKUP_DIR -name "*.tar.gz" -mtime +7 -delete

Run nightly via cron. Store backups offsite (S3, another server, external drive).

Common Problems

“Out of memory” crashes The ML container is greedy. Solutions:

Add swap: sudo fallocate -l 4G /swapfile && sudo mkswap /swapfile && sudo swapon /swapfile
Upgrade to 12GB+ RAM
Disable machine learning temporarily in settings

Slow uploads

Check Nginx client_max_body_size (set to 50000M)
Verify you’re on SSD, not HDD
Try upload during off-peak hours

Face recognition not working

Check immich_machine_learning container is running: docker ps
Check logs: docker logs immich_machine_learning
Initial scan takes hours for large libraries—be patient

App won’t connect

SSL certificate must be valid (no self-signed)
Firewall must allow 443
PUBLIC_IMMICH_SERVER_URL must match your domain exactly

Performance Tuning

For 50,000+ photos:

PostgreSQL tuning (add to docker-compose environment):

environment:
  POSTGRES_INITDB_ARGS: '--encoding=UTF-8'

Hardware acceleration (Intel GPUs):

immich-machine-learning:
  devices:
    - /dev/dri:/dev/dri

Separate storage: Mount external storage for ./library if local disk is small.

The Honest Assessment

Immich isn’t perfect. Setup requires technical knowledge. AI features need real hardware. Mobile apps aren’t as polished as Google’s.

But it works. Your photos stay on your server. No terms-of-service changes. No AI training on your memories. No “free” service that disappears.

For $5/month and an afternoon of setup, that’s a fair trade.

Questions about the setup? Immich has active Discord and GitHub communities for troubleshooting.