[Feature] Backup only images starting from a particular date

[MohamedBassem]

The feature

Hi 👋 I started using Immich recently and it's amazing!

I've bulk uploaded my existing library (~60k assets) using CLI. I also installed the immich app to start automatically backing up new photos. However, my entire library is also backed up to icloud. The app is now trying to synchronize the entire icloud library. I understand that immich will probably detect and ignore the duplicates, but that's not the problem. The problem is that I'm using the "optimized library" mode in iOS, so not all images are stored locally. Immich is now trying to download all the 60k photos, upload them to the server to then detect that they are duplicates. This will probably take forever.

I wonder if it's possible to add a new feature to tell the immich app to only consider images older than a particular data.

Platform

• Server
• Web
• Mobile

[AngelaDMerkel]

I also think this is a good idea and applies, for example, where you have downloaded from Google Photos and don't want to have to worry about the whole upload process again for duplicates which might be on your phone

[dstapp]

Exactly the same problem here. I don't have enough storage to sync my whole library from iCloud to the phone, so after uploading a few thousand photos to Immich, I'm stuck syncing now. So having a functionality like that would be awesome!

[akostadinov]

Probably you need some kind of an iCloud downloader to your computer. It is a horrible lock-in system, in the past I wanted to help somebody with downloading and gave up, although I didn't spend too much time.

There is already a feature request in immich-go but maybe you can better try icloudpd to download your photos and then use immich client or immich-go to upload them to immich.

Or how would syncing from a particular date help with images in iCloud? Maybe I don't understand the issue because I'm not an iPhone user.

[psyciknz]

Even just being able to stop the current sync task, and clear the outstanding images would have the same effect. The IOS would record that it has completed everything there and then only process new.

Or as someone pointed out to me on discord:

You could probably achieve this:
Add all the photos you have taken so far into a new album called - ABC
In the ios app, under backup albums. Include the Recents. And Exclude ABC

Recents basically includes all your photos. And you are excluding everything you have taken so far.
I have not tried it though

[phil9309]

Does it really work like that? I would think that as soon as you add the "recents" folder, you just add all the pictures?

[phil9309]

The fact that this feature is missing is actively preventing me from being able to use immichs own upload feature... I'd hope there's a chance we'll get this added one day.

[dejvidq]

Same here. I'd love to use Immich as my main photo backup, but lack of this feature is making me reconsider it. I store my photos on iCloud and I don't have enough space on the iPhone to download them from there to upload to Immich, so I thought I'd be smart to run it from the Mac, so later I can just upload new photos from my phone. I was sure that I did something wrong when I saw that my phone wants to upload everything once again, but it turns out that it's a """feature"""

[phil9309]

The exclusion advice right above my post does work. My wife got giga mad selecting 40000 pictures and when the iOS photos App crashed twice on her.. but well, it worked on the third try, when she stopped every 10000 pictures. Just add all of them to an album and exclude it.

[GodD6366]

I plan to migrate from Synology Photos to immich.
First, I will use immich-cli to migrate the already backed-up images, and then start backing up new photos from the mobile app. However, it seems that immich does not support this configuration.
It is recommended to refer to Synology Photos and add this feature, so that it can skip the process of downloading original images from iCloud and checking for duplicates with immich by comparing hashes.

[SystemZ]

Something similar is also available in Nextcloud app.
This feature would solve Immich's problem to upload big libraries of photos.

[Soulplayer]

I would love to see this too!

[radh21301]

I dont use iCloud, so not entirely sure if this will work.

You can first add everything you have on your device - all images and videos to an album say 'AAA'.

Then, in the immich app, when choosing backup folders -> INCLUDE 'Recents' and EXCLUDE 'AAA'.

Recents usually has absolutely everything. So you are excluding everything you have at the moment AND including everything you will possibly have. So, I guess only the new images will get uploaded.

[phil9309]

Yeah this worked for me a few months ago, both on iOS and Android.

Putting all the images in one album was a pain in the ass on iPhone, photos app kept crashing...

[dotfortun3-code]

I dont use iCloud, so not entirely sure if this will work.

You can first add everything you have on your device - all images and videos to an album say 'AAA'.

Then, in the immich app, when choosing backup folders -> INCLUDE 'Recents' and EXCLUDE 'AAA'.

Recents usually has absolutely everything. So you are excluding everything you have at the moment AND including everything you will possibly have. So, I guess only the new images will get uploaded.

The best way I found to do this, is create the album, and the use the Shortcuts app to make this work.

Here is how I did it, it adds 10k photos at a time and runs very fast, when it crashes, there are no more to add:

[Batwam]

I have managed to select all photos on iOS using this method: https://youtu.be/ZhzQtWDuKgI?si=na53Mx5y1LFIyrvu

I can also confirm that having the photos in an album and setting it as an exclusion works to prevent uploading. I'd find it better to have a way to specify a date though.

[kayg04]

I did the same thing but with the Photos app on the Mac, it was much easier than doing it on the phone or through the web icloud UI.

[pieterdevriesch]

I dont use iCloud, so not entirely sure if this will work.

You can first add everything you have on your device - all images and videos to an album say 'AAA'.

Then, in the immich app, when choosing backup folders -> INCLUDE 'Recents' and EXCLUDE 'AAA'.

Recents usually has absolutely everything. So you are excluding everything you have at the moment AND including everything you will possibly have. So, I guess only the new images will get uploaded.

The best way I found to do this, is create the album, and the use the Shortcuts app to make this work.

Here is how I did it, it adds 10k photos at a time and runs very fast, when it crashes, there are no more to add:

I always forget that Apple actually put a quite powerful scripting system on every iOS device. I did it exactly like this, although it did stop working after adding 29900 photos to the exclusion album (out of 37000)

[GER13117]

I organize all my photos in an external library, with a folder/album structure for each event (holidays, etc.). If Immich allowed me to set a date threshold for syncing photos, it would enable me to use the app as a seamless backup service while I'm away. Once back home, I could set a new date-threshold and move the files into my preferred folder structure.
While this might seem like a niche use case, it's actually quite intuitive for anyone who maintains a structured library outside of Immich. Currently, the only way to achieve this is by connecting my phone to my PC and manually transferring files. Adding this functionality would not only save time but also make Immich stand out even further among self-hosted photo libraries.

[akostadinov]

I think you can simulate hierarchy with album names. Instead of a directory structure like 2024/Rome/Peter, 2024/Rome/Steffan, 2024/Brussels/Steffan, you may use a flat directory structure but with a particular naming convention like 2024-Rome-Peter, 2024-Brussels-Steffan.

Then immich client has a sync option to create album names on server based on directory name.

About the mobile app, I'm not sure how is it supposed to work there. Maybe create albums on the phone, then add the albums to the list of albums immich synchronizes.

This will create a lot of albums and I have noticed that app lists albums slowly when there are many (although 1.121 fixes some issue with that and I haven't tested since).

[GER13117]

My folders look something like 2410_Berlin, 2411_Munich, 2411_Brussels. How would you use the Immich templates to do that? Other than that, there is the problem of an already existing (large) iCloud library.
Also, I would need to migrate all my other (terabytes of) photos and videos from my external library into the internal library. Otherwise, I would have two libraries...

[akostadinov]

https://immich.app/docs/administration/storage-template/

I don't see any way to automatically add the location. But it appears to be possible to use album names or asset id, although I have no idea where this asset id would come from to add the Berlin/whatever part.

Another question is whether it is a problem to have some images in external and some images in internal library. I never used an external library so I don't know. Just a question.

Anyway, now I read again your original request. Perhaps you can keep all photos unselected in immich. And for every place, create an album which is added to sync settings. Whenever you put photos in that album, they will be synced to immich while you are not at home.

P.S. Syncing since date would be a useful feature. Also shouldn't be hard to implement. I'm not arguing. Just brainstorming what could make your life easier in the meanwhile.

[GER13117]

I didn’t understand your comment as argument against a date threshold, I was just curious on how to get my albums structure into my file structure. Somehow I never saw the {{album}} option. So thank you for leading to that!

Now only the problem of the gigantic iCloud Library remains…

[akostadinov]

Glad I could be somehow helpful. I don't understand the iCloud problem. I added a note to #4169 (comment), maybe continue discussion there.

[Arttast]

sorry for bumping but whats the eta for this

[bo0tzz]

@Arttast bumping is frowned upon, we don't give ETAs, and this feature is not being worked on. If it's important to you, a PR would be welcomed.