TL;DR: Changes to albums, descriptions, location, date/time and favorites through Immich are stored in the photo’s EXIF and automatically backed up to my Synology NAS and into Dropbox; no database needed. Below is a video for those who prefer to watch instead of read.
I created a simpler version of the plugin I use that is suitable for those with their own workflows which might differ from mine. It’s available at immich-exif.
I’ve been working on my photo management and archiving workflow for over 2 decades. It’s changed a lot over that time but usually in bursts. It works really well and I don’t have to touch it much.
By far, the most durable aspect of my photo management workflow is that it only relies on EXIF to store metadata about photos. No reliance on an external database to keep track of descriptions, favorites or albums. I’m not sure of any other workflow which does this but I think they all should. But we’re not here to talk about that. I want to tell you all how I’m using Immich.
I outlined my philosophy for photo management in detail in another post but I’ll summarize them here in order of importance.
Preserve. My photo library needs to be future-proof for decades into the future.
My photo library needs to be future-proof for decades into the future. Unify. Photos from my wife and my phones need to be combined into a single library.
Photos from my wife and my phones need to be combined into a single library. Experience. The photos and videos need to come to life and help us re-experience the moments when they were taken.
I was using Google Photos as a read-only viewer of my photos and fell in love with the discovery features. But a change back in 2019 to how Google Photos and Google Drive worked together broke my workflow.
The primary source of my photos is my Synology NAS at home. I organize my photos using a simple command-line tool, named Elodie, that I wrote over 10 years ago that’s grown to 10k lines of code, 1,300 stars and 150 forks. The best way to describe it is that it materializes your photo library onto the file system using only the EXIF. It’s my canonical organizer.
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