<\/p>\n
I will flush out the documentation but basically I followed baty.net\/posts\/2025\/12\/from-apple-photos-to-immich\/\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n Immich is a Docker container but My Pi’s aren’t robust enough (I think) so I installed it on my Intel Mac Mini (2019) which is doing duty as my Calibre server and Jellyfin server. This means I have to use the clucnky Docker Desktop for Mac but c’est la vie. It install via docker -compose file docs.immich.app\/install\/docker-compose<\/a>. The wget didn’t work so I just downloaded the file from Github. I had to use terminal to rename the .env file. Then I fired up the container by running the compose file and that was pretty much it.<\/p>\n Visit the app by going to 192.168.1.x:2283, create an account and add a password.<\/p>\n I played around with and the iPhone app and decided it was going to work and proceeded to move my main library of 30,000+ images. What I did was copy the photos library (Photos Library.photoslibrary) over to the mac mini (150gig, 1+ hours) then use an utility to export it. In retrospect that was silly since I exported it to an external SSD for temporary storage anyway. What I should have done was\u00a0 run the utility direct from the original library to the ssd and save me a lot of time.<\/p>\n To install:<\/p>\n It’s a pretty fancy little utility but I went with the basics:<\/p>\n Note<\/strong> this if you want to import a library other than the defualt Photos library. Otherwise you can just eliminate the last line.<\/p>\n It didn’t take too long and it had exported all my images in a fancy folder structure on the ssd.<\/p>\n Then I had to install the command line interface for immich. I discovered it was on brew which was easier than the suggested npm.<\/p>\n Then you need to go to the immich web interface (192.168.1.x:2283) and add an api key. Account Settings > Api Key.\u00a0 Then add the key tot eh following and log in.<\/p>\n Once you are logged in, let \u2019er rip.<\/p>\n Less than an hour later the images were imported. It took a couple of hours for the thumbnails to appear and overnight for things like geo-location and face recognition to\u00a0 finishing running.<\/p>\n So far it is pretty slick. I can\u00a0 take a picture on my phone and\u00a0 it is set to upload the image as soon as I open the app (if I am at home). The response is snappy, the AI assisted search is wonderful (for finding images with two cats, or bread, or pizza etc.)<\/p>\n If I keep it I will likely set up a domain and a ssl cert so I can access the images from outside my firewall. But for now the big downside is that if I want to do anything but look at an image on my iPhone from outside my personal network I am out of luck\u2014the app only stores thumbnails. And maybe a followup review<\/a> where I can add a bit more detail…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’ve decided to give an alternative to Apple Photos a try. Photos has been increasingly\u00a0 frustrating in its organization on the iphone and its pretty darn slow on my desktop if I try and offload the data base to an external drive. Immich An open source, self hosted photo solution, Immich is also free. And […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/macblaze.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16375"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/macblaze.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/macblaze.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/macblaze.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/macblaze.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16375"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/macblaze.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16406,"href":"https:\/\/macblaze.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16375\/revisions\/16406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/macblaze.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/macblaze.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/macblaze.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/macblaze.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/immich-demo-1024x775.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nPreliminary testing<\/h3>\n
cd<\/code> into your directory and docker compose up -d<\/code><\/p>\nosxphotos<\/h3>\n
brew tap Rhetbull\/osxphotos<\/code><\/p>\nbrew install osxphotos<\/code><\/p>\nosxphotos export \/Volumes\/External_SSD\/DestinationFolder \\<\/code>
\n--skip-original-if-edited \\<\/code>
\n--sidecar XMP \\<\/code>
\n--touch-file \\<\/code>
\n--directory \"{folder_album}\" \\<\/code>
\n--download-missing \\<\/code>
\n--library '\/Users\/admin\/Desktop\/photo library\/Photos Library.photoslibrary'<\/code><\/p>\nimmich cli<\/h3>\n
brew install immich-cli<\/code><\/p>\nimmich login http:\/\/192.168.1.x:2283\/api APIKEYxxxXXXxxxXXXXxxXXXXXx<\/code><\/p>\nimmich upload --recursive \/Volumes\/External_SSD\/DestinationFolder --album<\/code><\/p>\nConclusion<\/h2>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/macblaze.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/pizza-400x300.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n