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Automatically create and populate albums in Immich from a folder structure in external libraries
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README 
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README.md

Docker

Immich Folder Album Creator

This is a python script designed to automatically create albums in Immich from a folder structure mounted into the Immich container. This is useful for automatically creating and populating albums for external libraries. Using the provided docker image, the script can simply be added to the Immich compose stack and run along the rest of Immich's containers.

Current compatibility: Immich v1.106.1 - v1.121.x

Disclaimer

This script is mostly based on the following original script: REDVM/immich_auto_album.py

Table of Contents

  1. Usage (Bare Python Script)
  2. Usage (Docker)
  3. Choosing the correct root_path
  4. How It Works (with Examples)
  5. Filtering
  6. Automatic Album Sharing
  7. Cleaning Up Albums
  8. Assets in Multiple Albums
  9. Setting Album Thumbnails
  10. Automatic Archiving
  11. Dealing with External Library Changes

Usage

Bare Python Script

  1. Download the script and its requirements 
    curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Salvoxia/immich-folder-album-creator/main/immich_auto_album.py -o immich_auto_album.py
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Salvoxia/immich-folder-album-creator/main/requirements.txt -o requirements.txt
  2. Install requirements 
    pip3 install -r requirements.txt
  3. Run the script 
    usage: immich_auto_album.py [-h] [-t {literal,file}] [-r ROOT_PATH] [-u] [-a ALBUM_LEVELS] [-s ALBUM_SEPARATOR] [-c CHUNK_SIZE] [-C FETCH_CHUNK_SIZE] [-l {CRITICAL,ERROR,WARNING,INFO,DEBUG}] [-k]
                            [-i IGNORE] [-m {CREATE,CLEANUP,DELETE_ALL}] [-d] [-x SHARE_WITH] [-o {viewer,editor}] [-S {0,1,2}] [-O {False,asc,desc}] [-A] [-f PATH_FILTER]
                            [--set-album-thumbnail {first,last,random,random-all,random-filtered}] [-v] [--find-archived-assets]
                            root_path api_url api_key

Create Immich Albums from an external library path based on the top level folders

positional arguments:
  root_path             The external library's root path in Immich
  api_url               The root API URL of immich, e.g. https://immich.mydomain.com/api/
  api_key               The Immich API Key to use. Set --api-key-type to 'file' if a file path is provided.

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -t {literal,file}, --api-key-type {literal,file}
                        The type of the Immich API Key (default: literal)
  -r ROOT_PATH, --root-path ROOT_PATH
                        Additional external library root path in Immich; May be specified multiple times for multiple import paths or external libraries. (default: None)
  -u, --unattended      Do not ask for user confirmation after identifying albums. Set this flag to run script as a cronjob. (default: False)
  -a ALBUM_LEVELS, --album-levels ALBUM_LEVELS
                        Number of sub-folders or range of sub-folder levels below the root path used for album name creation. Positive numbers start from top of the folder structure, negative numbers
                        from the bottom. Cannot be 0. If a range should be set, the start level and end level must be separated by a comma like '<startLevel>,<endLevel>'. If negative levels are used in
                        a range, <startLevel> must be less than or equal to <endLevel>. (default: 1)
  -s ALBUM_SEPARATOR, --album-separator ALBUM_SEPARATOR
                        Separator string to use for compound album names created from nested folders. Only effective if -a is set to a value > 1 (default: )
  -c CHUNK_SIZE, --chunk-size CHUNK_SIZE
                        Maximum number of assets to add to an album with a single API call (default: 2000)
  -C FETCH_CHUNK_SIZE, --fetch-chunk-size FETCH_CHUNK_SIZE
                        Maximum number of assets to fetch with a single API call (default: 5000)
  -l {CRITICAL,ERROR,WARNING,INFO,DEBUG}, --log-level {CRITICAL,ERROR,WARNING,INFO,DEBUG}
                        Log level to use (default: INFO)
  -k, --insecure        Set to true to ignore SSL verification (default: False)
  -i IGNORE, --ignore IGNORE
                        Use either literals or glob-like patterns to ignore assets for album name creation. This filter is evaluated after any values passed with --path-filter. May be specified
                        multiple times. (default: None)
  -m {CREATE,CLEANUP,DELETE_ALL}, --mode {CREATE,CLEANUP,DELETE_ALL}
                        Mode for the script to run with. CREATE = Create albums based on folder names and provided arguments; CLEANUP = Create album nmaes based on current images and script arguments,
                        but delete albums if they exist; DELETE_ALL = Delete all albums. If the mode is anything but CREATE, --unattended does not have any effect. Only performs deletion if
                        -d/--delete-confirm option is set, otherwise only performs a dry-run. (default: CREATE)
  -d, --delete-confirm  Confirm deletion of albums when running in mode CLEANUP or DELETE_ALL. If this flag is not set, these modes will perform a dry run only. Has no effect in mode CREATE (default:
                        False)
  -x SHARE_WITH, --share-with SHARE_WITH
                        A user name (or email address of an existing user) to share newly created albums with. Sharing only happens if the album was actually created, not if new assets were added to an
                        existing album. If the the share role should be specified by user, the format <userName>=<shareRole> must be used, where <shareRole> must be one of 'viewer' or 'editor'. May be
                        specified multiple times to share albums with more than one user. (default: None)
  -o {viewer,editor}, --share-role {viewer,editor}
                        The default share role for users newly created albums are shared with. Only effective if --share-with is specified at least once and the share role is not specified within
                        --share-with. (default: viewer)
  -S {0,1,2}, --sync-mode {0,1,2}
                        Synchronization mode to use. Synchronization mode helps synchronizing changes in external libraries structures to Immich after albums have already been created. Possible Modes:
                        0 = do nothing; 1 = Delete any empty albums; 2 = Delete offline assets AND any empty albums (default: 0)
  -O {False,asc,desc}, --album-order {False,asc,desc}
                        Set sorting order for newly created albums to newest or oldest file first, Immich defaults to newest file first (default: False)
  -A, --find-assets-in-albums
                        By default, the script only finds assets that are not assigned to any album yet. Set this option to make the script discover assets that are already part of an album and handle
                        them as usual. If --find-archived-assets is set as well, both options apply. (default: False)
  -f PATH_FILTER, --path-filter PATH_FILTER
                        Use either literals or glob-like patterns to filter assets before album name creation. This filter is evaluated before any values passed with --ignore. May be specified multiple
                        times. (default: None)
  --set-album-thumbnail {first,last,random,random-all,random-filtered}
                        Set first/last/random image as thumbnail for newly created albums or albums assets have been added to. If set to random-filtered, thumbnails are shuffled for all albums whose
                        assets would not be filtered out or ignored by the ignore or path-filter options, even if no assets were added during the run. If set to random-all, the thumbnails for ALL
                        albums will be shuffled on every run. (default: None)
  -v, --archive         Set this option to automatically archive all assets that were newly added to albums. If this option is set in combination with --mode = CLEANUP or DELETE_ALL, archived images of
                        deleted albums will be unarchived. Archiving hides the assets from Immich's timeline. (default: False)
  --find-archived-assets
                        By default, the script only finds assets that are not archived in Immich. Set this option to make the script discover assets that are already archived. If -A/--find-assets-in-
                        albums is set as well, both options apply. (default: False)

Plain example without optional arguments:

python3 ./immich_auto_album.py /path/to/external/lib https://immich.mydomain.com/api thisIsMyApiKeyCopiedFromImmichWebGui

Docker

A Docker image is provided to be used as a runtime environment. It can be used to either run the script manually, or via cronjob by providing a crontab expression to the container. The container can then be added to the Immich compose stack directly.

Environment Variables

The environment variables are analoguous to the script's command line arguments.

Environment varible Mandatory? Description
ROOT_PATH yes A single or a comma separated list of import paths for external libraries in Immich.
Refer to Choosing the correct root_path.
API_URL yes The root API URL of immich, e.g. https://immich.mydomain.com/api/
API_KEY no The Immich API Key to use. Either API_KEY or API_KEY_FILE must be specified. The API_KEY variable takes precedence for ease of manual execution, but it is recommended to use API_KEY_FILE.
API_KEY_FILE no An absolute path (from the root of the container) to a file containing the Immich API Key. The file might be mounted into the container using a volume (e.g. -v /path/to/api_key.secret:/immich_api_key.secret:ro). The file must contain only the value.
CRON_EXPRESSION yes A crontab-style expression (e.g. 0 * * * *) to perform album creation on a schedule (e.g. every hour).
ALBUM_LEVELS no Number of sub-folders or range of sub-folder levels below the root path used for album name creation. Positive numbers start from top of the folder structure, negative numbers from the bottom. Cannot be 0. If a range should be set, the start level and end level must be separated by a comma.
Refer to How it works for a detailed explanation and examples.
ALBUM_SEPARATOR no Separator string to use for compound album names created from nested folders. Only effective if -a is set to a value > 1(default: " ")
CHUNK_SIZE no Maximum number of assets to add to an album with a single API call (default: 2000)
FETCH_CHUNK_SIZE no Maximum number of assets to fetch with a single API call (default: 5000)
LOG_LEVEL no Log level to use (default: INFO), allowed values: CRITICAL,ERROR,WARNING,INFO,DEBUG
INSECURE no Set to true to disable SSL verification for the Immich API server, useful for self-signed certificates (default: false), allowed values: true, false
IGNORE no A colon : separated list of literals or glob-style patterns that will cause an image to be ignored if found in its path.
MODE no Mode for the script to run with.
CREATE = Create albums based on folder names and provided arguments
CLEANUP = Create album nmaes based on current images and script arguments, but delete albums if they exist
DELETE_ALL = Delete all albums.
If the mode is anything but CREATE, --unattended does not have any effect.
(default: CREATE).
Refer to Cleaning Up Albums.
DELETE_CONFIRM no Confirm deletion of albums when running in mode CLEANUP or DELETE_ALL. If this flag is not set, these modes will perform a dry run only. Has no effect in mode CREATE (default: False).
Refer to Cleaning Up Albums.
SHARE_WITH no A single or a colon (:) separated list of existing user names (or email addresses of existing users) to share newly created albums with. If the the share role should be specified by user, the format = must be used, where must be one of viewer or editor. May be specified multiple times to share albums with more than one user. (default: None) Sharing only happens if an album is actually created, not if new assets are added to it.
Refer to Automatic Album Sharing.
SHARE_ROLE no The role for users newly created albums are shared with. Only effective if SHARE_WITH is not empty and no explicit share role was specified for at least one user. (default: viewer), allowed values: viewer, editor
SYNC_MODE no Synchronization mode to use. Synchronization mode helps synchronizing changes in external libraries structures to Immich after albums have already been created. Possible Modes:
0 = do nothing
1 = Delete any empty albums
2 = Delete offline assets AND any empty albums
(default: 0)
Refer to Dealing with External Library Changes.
ALBUM_ORDER no Set sorting order for newly created albums to newest (desc) or oldest (asc) file first, Immich defaults to newest file first, allowed values: asc, desc
FIND_ASSETS_IN_ALBUMS no By default, the script only finds assets that are not assigned to any album yet. Set this option to make the script discover assets that are already part of an album and handle them as usual. If --find-archived-assets is set as well, both options apply. (default: False)
Refer to Assets in Multiple Albums.
PATH_FILTER no A colon : separated list of literals or glob-style patterns to filter assets before album name creation. (default: ``)
Refer to Filtering.
SET_ALBUM_THUMBNAIL no Set first/last/random image as thumbnail (based on image creation timestamp) for newly created albums or albums assets have been added to.
Allowed values: first,last,random,random-filtered,random-all
If set to random-filtered, thumbnails are shuffled for all albums whose assets would not be filtered out or ignored by the IGNORE or PATH_FILTER options, even if no assets were added during the run. If set to random-all, the thumbnails for ALL albums will be shuffled on every run. (default: None)
Refer to Setting Album Thumbnails.
ARCHIVE no Set this option to automatically archive all assets that were newly added to albums.
If this option is set in combination with MODE = CLEANUP or DELETE_ALL, archived images of deleted albums will be unarchived.
Archiving hides the assets from Immich's timeline. (default: False)
Refer to Automatic Archiving.
FIND_ARCHIVED_ASSETS no By default, the script only finds assets that are not archived in Immich. Set this option make the script discover assets that are already archived. If -A/--find-assets-in-albums is set as well, both options apply. (default: False)
Refer to Automatic Archiving.

Run the container with Docker

To perform a manually triggered dry run (only list albums that would be created), use the following command:

docker run -e API_URL="https://immich.mydomain.com/api/" -e API_KEY="xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" -e ROOT_PATH="/external_libs/photos" salvoxia/immich-folder-album-creator:latest /script/immich_auto_album.sh

To actually create albums after performing a dry run, use the following command (setting the UNATTENDED environment variable):

docker run -e UNATTENDED="1" -e API_URL="https://immich.mydomain.com/api/" -e API_KEY="xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" -e ROOT_PATH="/external_libs/photos" salvoxia/immich-folder-album-creator:latest /script/immich_auto_album.sh

To set up the container to periodically run the script, give it a name, pass the TZ variable and a valid crontab expression as environment variable. This example runs the script every hour:

docker run --name immich-folder-album-creator -e TZ="Europe/Berlin" -e CRON_EXPRESSION="0 * * * *" -e API_URL="https://immich.mydomain.com/api/" -e API_KEY="xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" -e ROOT_PATH="/external_libs/photos" salvoxia/immich-folder-album-creator:latest

If your external library uses multiple import paths or you have set up multiple external libraries, you can pass multiple paths in ROOT_PATH by setting it to a comma separated list of paths:

docker run --name immich-folder-album-creator -e TZ="Europe/Berlin" -e CRON_EXPRESSION="0 * * * *" -e API_URL="https://immich.mydomain.com/api/" -e API_KEY="xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" -e ROOT_PATH="/external_libs/photos,/external_libs/more_photos" salvoxia/immich-folder-album-creator:latest

Run the container with Docker-Compose

Adding the container to Immich's docker-compose.yml file:

#
# WARNING: Make sure to use the docker-compose.yml of the current release:
#
# https://github.com/immich-app/immich/releases/latest/download/docker-compose.yml
#
# The compose file on main may not be compatible with the latest release.
#

name: immich

services:
  immich-server:
    container_name: immich_server
    volumes:
     - /path/to/my/photos:/external_libs/photos
     - /path/to/secret/file:/immich_api_key.secret:ro
  ...
  immich-folder-album-creator:
    container_name: immich_folder_album_creator
    image: salvoxia/immich-folder-album-creator:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      API_URL: http://immich_server:2283/api
      API_KEY_FILE: /immich_api_key.secret
      ROOT_PATH: /external_libs/photos
      CRON_EXPRESSION: "0 * * * *"
      TZ: Europe/Berlin

Choosing the correct root_path

The root path /path/to/external/lib/ is the path you have mounted your external library into the Immich container.
If you are following Immich's External library Documentation, you are using an environment variable called ${EXTERNAL_PATH} which is mounted to /usr/src/app/external in the Immich container. Your root_path to pass to the script is /usr/src/app/external.

How it works

The script utilizies Immich's REST API to query all images indexed by Immich, extract the folder for all images that are in the top level of any provided root_path, then creates albums with the names of these folders (if not yet exists) and adds the images to the correct albums.

The following arguments influence what albums are created:
root_path, --album-levels and --album-separator

  • root_path is the base path where images are looked for. Multiple root paths can be specified by adding the -r argument as many times as necessary. Only images within that base path will be considered for album creation.
  • --album-levels controls how many levels of nested folders are considered when creating albums. The default is 1. For examples see below.
  • --album-separator sets the separator used for concatenating nested folder names to create an album name. It is a blank by default.

Examples:
Suppose you provide an external library to Immich under the path /external_libs/photos. The folder structure of photos might look like this:

/external_libs/photos/
├── 2020/
│   ├── 02 Feb/
│   │   └── Vacation/
│   ├── 08 Aug/
│   │   └── Vacation/
├── Birthdays/
│   ├── John/
│   └── Jane/
└── Skiing 2023/

Albums created for root_path = /external_libs/photos (--album-levels is implicitly set to 1):

  • 2020 (containing all images from 2020 and all sub-folders)
  • Birthdays (containing all images from Birthdays itself as well as John and Jane)
  • Skiing 2023

Albums created for root_path = /external_libs/photos (--album-levels is implicitly set to 1) and --ignore "Vacation":

  • 2020 (containing all images from 2020, 2020/02 Feb and 2020/08 Aug, but NOT 2020/02 Feb/Vacation or 2020/08 Aug/Vacation)
  • Birthdays (containing all images from Birthdays itself as well as John and Jane)
  • Skiing 2023

Albums created for root_path = /external_libs/photos/Birthdays:

  • John
  • Jane

Albums created for root_path = /external_libs/photos and --album-levels = 2:

  • 2020 (containing all images from 2020 itself, if any)
  • 2020 02 Feb (containing all images from 2020/02 Feb itself, 2020/02 Feb/Vacation and 2020/02 Aug/Vacation)
  • Birthdays John (containing all imags from Birthdays/John)
  • Birthdays Jane (containing all imags from Birthdays/John)
  • Skiing 2023

Albums created for root_path = /external_libs/photos, --album-levels = 3 and --album-separator " - " :

  • 2020 (containing all images from 2020 itself, if any)
  • 2020 - 02 Feb (containing all images from 02 Feb itself, if any)
  • 2020 - 02 Feb - Vacation (containing all imags from 2020/02 Feb/Vacation)
  • 2020 - 08 Aug - Vacation (containing all imags from 2020/02 Aug/Vacation)
  • Birthdays - John
  • Birthdays - Jane
  • Skiing 2023

Albums created for root_path = /external_libs/photos, --album-levels = -1 and --album-separator " - " :

  • 2020 (containing all images from 2020 itself, if any)
  • 02 Feb (containing all images from 2020/02 Feb itself, if any)
  • Vacation (containing all images from 2020/02 Feb/Vacation AND 2020/08 Aug/Vacation)
  • John (containing all imags from Birthdays/John)
  • Jane (containing all imags from Birthdays/Jane)
  • Skiing 2023

Album Level Ranges

It is possible to specify not just a number for --album-levels, but a range from level x to level y in the folder structure that should make up an album's name:
--album-levels="2,3"
The range is applied to the folder structure beneath root_path from the top for positive levels and from the bottom for negative levels. Suppose the following folder structure for an external library with the script's root_path set to /external_libs/photos:

/external_libs/photos/2020/2020 02 Feb/Vacation
/external_libs/photos/2020/2020 08 Aug/Vacation
  • --album-levels="2,3" will create albums (for this folder structure, this is equal to --album-levels="-2")
    • 2020 02 Feb Facation
    • 2020 08 Aug Vacation
  • --album-levels="2,2" will create albums (for this folder structure, this is equal to --album-levels="-2,-2")
    • 2020 02 Feb
    • 2020 08 Aug

Important

When passing negative ranges as album levels, you must pass the argument in the form --album-levels="-2,-2". Emphasis is on the equals sign = separating the option from the value. Otherwise, you might get an error argument -a/--album-levels: expected one argument!

Warning

Note that with negative album-levels or album level ranges, images from different parent folders will be mixed in the same album if they reside in sub-folders with the same name (see Vacation in example above).

Since Immich does not support real nested albums (yet?), neither does this script.

Filtering

It is possible filter images by either specifying keywords or path patterns to either specifically filter for or ignore assets based on their path. Two options control this behavior.
Internally, the script converts literals to glob-patterns that will match a path if the specified literal occurs anywhere in it. Example: --ignore Feb is equal to --ignore **/*Feb*/**.

The following wild-cards are supported:

Pattern Meaning
* Matches everything (even nothing) within one folder level
? Matches any single character
[] Matches one character in the brackets, e.g. [a] literally matches a
[!] Matches one character not in the brackets, e.h. [!a] matches any character but a

Ignoring Assets

The option -i / --ignore can be specified multiple times for each literal or glob-style path pattern.
When using Docker, the environment variable IGNORE accepts a semicolon-separated : list of literals or glob-style patterns. If an image's path below the root path matches the pattern, it will be ignored.

Filtering for Assets

The option -f / ---path-filter can be specified multiple times for each literal or glob-style path pattern. When using Docker, the environment variable PATH_FILTER accepts a semicolon-separated : of literals or glob-style patterns. If an image's path below the root path does NOT match the pattern, it will be ignored.

Tip

When working with path filters, consider setting the -A / --find-assets-in-albums option or Docker environment variable FIND_ASSETS_IN_ALBUMS for the script to discover assets that are already part of an album. That way, assets can be added to multiple albums by the script. Refer to the Assets in Multiple Albums section for more information.

Filter Examples

Consider the following folder structure:

/external_libs/photos/
├── 2020/
│   ├── 02 Feb/
│   │   └── Vacation/
│   ├── 08 Aug/
│   │   └── Vacation/
├── Birthdays/
│   ├── John/
│   └── Jane/
└── Skiing 2023/
  • To only create a Birthdays album with all images directly in Birthdays or in any subfolder on any level, run the script with the following options:
    • root_path=/external_libs/photos
    • --album-level=1
    • --path-filter Birthdays/**
  • To only create albums for the 2020s (all 202x years), but with the album names like 2020 02 Feb, run the script with the following options:
    • root_path=/external_libs/photos
    • --album-level=2
    • --path-filter=202?/**
  • To only create albums for 2020s (all 202x years) with the album names like 2020 02 Feb, but only with images in folders one level below 2020 and not any of the Vacation images, run the script with the following options:
    • root_path=/external_libs/photos
    • --album-level=2
    • --path-filter=202?/*/*
  • To create a Vacation album with all vacation images, run the script with the following options:
    • root_path=/external_libs/photos
    • --album-level=-1
    • --path-filter=**/Vacation/*

Automatic Album Sharing

The scripts support sharing newly created albums with a list of existing users. The sharing role (viewer or editor) can be specified for all users at once or individually per user.

Album Sharing Examples (Bare Python Script)

Two arguments control this feature:

  • -o / --share-role: The default role for users an album is shared with. Allowed values are viewer or editor. This argument is optional and defaults to viewer.
  • -x / --share-with: Specify once per user to share with. The value should be either the user name or the user's email address as specified in Immich. If the user name is used and it contains blanks , it must be wrapped in double quotes ". To override the default share role and specify a role explicitly for this user, the format <userName>=<shareRole> must be used (refer to examples below).

To share new albums with users User A and User B as viewer, use the following call:

python3 ./immich_auto_album.py --share-with "User A" --share-with "User B" /path/to/external/lib https://immich.mydomain.com/api thisIsMyApiKeyCopiedFromImmichWebGui

To share new albums with users User A and User B as editor, use the following call:

python3 ./immich_auto_album.py --share-with "User A" --share-with "User B" --share-role "editor" /path/to/external/lib https://immich.mydomain.com/api thisIsMyApiKeyCopiedFromImmichWebGui

To share new albums with users User A and a user with mail address userB@mydomain.com, but User A should be an editor, use the following call:

python3 ./immich_auto_album.py --share-with "User A=editor" --share-with "userB@mydomain.com" /path/to/external/lib https://immich.mydomain.com/api thisIs

Album Sharing Examples (Docker)

Two environment variables control this feature:

  • SHARE_ROLE: The default role for users an album is shared with. Allowed values are viewer or editor. This argument is optional and defaults to viewer.
  • SHARE_WITH: A colon : separated list of either names or email addresses (or a mix) of existing users. To override the default share role and specify a role explicitly for each user, the format <userName>=<shareRole> must be used (refer to examples below).

To share new albums with users User A and User B as viewer, use the following call:

docker run -e SHARE_WITH="User A:User B" -e UNATTENDED="1" -e API_URL="https://immich.mydomain.com/api/" -e API_KEY="xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" -e ROOT_PATH="/external_libs/photos" salvoxia/immich-folder-album-creator:latest /script/immich_auto_album.sh

To share new albums with users User A and User B as editor, use the following call:

docker run -e SHARE_WITH="User A:User B" -e SHARE_ROLE="editor" -e UNATTENDED="1" -e API_URL="https://immich.mydomain.com/api/" -e API_KEY="xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" -e ROOT_PATH="/external_libs/photos" salvoxia/immich-folder-album-creator:latest /script/immich_auto_album.sh

To share new albums with users User A and a user with mail address userB@mydomain.com, but User A should be an editor, use the following call:

docker run -e SHARE_WITH="User A=editor:userB@mydomain.com" -e UNATTENDED="1" -e API_URL="https://immich.mydomain.com/api/" -e API_KEY="xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" -e ROOT_PATH="/external_libs/photos" salvoxia/immich-folder-album-creator:latest /script/immich_auto_album.sh

Cleaning Up Albums

The script supports differnt run modes (option -m/--mode or env variable MODE for Docker). The default mode is CREATE, which is used to create albums. The other two modes are CLEANUP and DELETE_ALL.

Caution

Regardless of the mode you are using, deleting albums cannot be undone! The only option is to let the script run again and create new albums base on the passed arguments and current assets in Immich.

To prevent accidental deletions, setting the mode to CLEANUP or DELETE_ALL alone will not actually delete any albums, but only perform a dry run. The dry run prints a list of albums that the script would delete.
To actually delete albums, the option -d/--delete-confirm (or env variable DELETE_CONFIRM for Docker) must be set.

CLEANUP

The script will generate album names using the script's arguments and the assets found in Immich, but instead of creating the albums, it will delete them (if they exist). This is useful if a large number of albums was created with no/the wrong --album-separator or --album-levels settings.

DELETE_ALL

Caution

As the name suggests, this mode blindly deletes ALL albums from Immich. Use with caution!

Assets in Multiple Albums

By default, the script only fetches assets from Immich that are not assigned to any album yet. This makes querying assets in large libraries very fast. However, if assets should be part of either manually created albums as well as albums based on the folder structure, or if multiple script passes with different album level settings should create differently named albums with overlapping contents, the option --find-assets-in-albums (bare Python) or environment variable FIND_ASSETS_IN_ALBUMS (Docker) may be set.
In that case, the script will request all assets from Immich and add them to their corresponding folders, even if the also are part of other albums.

Tip

This option can be especially useful when Filtering for Assets.

Setting Album Thumbnails

The script supports automatically setting album thumbnails by specifying the --set-album-thumbnail option (bare Python) or SET_ALBUM_THUMBNAIL environment variable (Docker). There are several options to choose from for thumbnail selection:

  • first: Sets the first image as thumbnail based on image creation timestamps
  • last: Sets the last image as thumbnail based on image creation timestamps
  • random: Sets the thumbnail to a random image

When using one of the values above, the thumbnail of an album will be updated whenever assets are added.

Furthermore, the script supports two additional modes that are applied even if no assets were added to the album:

  • random-all: In this mode the thumbnail for all albums will be shuffled every time the script runs, ignoring any root_path, --ignore or --path-filter values.
  • random-filtered: Using this mode, the thumbnail for an albums will be shuffled every run if the album is not ignored by root_path or due to usage of the --ignore or --path-filter options.

Caution

Updating album thumbnails cannot be reverted!

Automatic Archiving

In Immich, 'archiving' an image means to hide it from the main timeline.
This script is capable of automatically archiving images it added to albums during the run to hide them from the timeline. To achieve this, run the script with option --archive or Docker environment variable ARCHIVE=true.

Important

Archiving images has the side effect that they are no longer detected by the script with default options. This means that if an album that was created with the --archive option set is deleted from the Immich user interface, the script will no longer find the images even though they are no longer assigned to an album.
To make the script find also archived images, run the script with the option --find-archived-assets or Docker environment variable FIND_ARCHIVED_ASSETS=true.

Warning

If the script is used to delete albums using --mode=CLEANUP or --mode=DELETE_ALL with the --archive option set, the script will automatically unarchive all assets of deleted albums to revert them to their prior state. If you manually archived selected assets in albums, this will be reverted!

Dealing with External Library Changes

Due to their nature, external libraries may be changed by the user without Immich having any say in it.
Two examples of this are the user deleting or renaming folders in their external libraries after the script has created albums, or the user moving single files from one folder to another. The script would create new albums from renamed folders or add images to their new album after they have been moved.
Immich itself deals with this by marking images/videos it no longer sees in their original location as "offline". This can lead to albums being completely populated by "offline" files only (if the folder was renamed or deleted) while they exist normally in a new album or with single images being offline in one album, while existing normally in their new albums.
As of version 1.116.0, Immich no longer shows "offline" assets in the main timeline, but only in the Trash, together with deleted assets. If the trash is emptied, Immich forgets about these "offline" assets. If the asset is available again, it is removed from the trash and shows up as normal in the main timeline.

This script offers two levels of synchronization options to deal with these issues with an option called Sync Mode. It is an optional argument / environment variable that may have values from 0 to 2. The following behaviors wil be triggered by the different values:

  • 0: No syncing (default)
  • 1: Delete all empty albums at the end of a run
  • 2: Delete ("forget") all offline assets, then delete all empty albums

Option 1 leaves it up to the user to clear up "offline" assets by emptying the trash or restoring access to the files. Only if after any of these actions empty albums are left behind, they are automatically removed.
Option 2 will first delete all "offline" assets automatically, then do the same with any empty albums left.

Important

If your library is on a network share or external drive that might be prone to not being available all the time, avoid using Sync Mode = 2.

Caution

It is not possible for the script to distinguish between an album that was left behind empty after Offline Asset Removal and a manually created album with no images added to it! All empty albums of that user will be deleted!

It is up to you whether you want to use the full capabilities Sync Mode offers, parts of it or none.
An example for the Immich docker-compose.yml stack when using full Sync Mode might look like this:

#
# WARNING: Make sure to use the docker-compose.yml of the current release:
#
# https://github.com/immich-app/immich/releases/latest/download/docker-compose.yml
#
# The compose file on main may not be compatible with the latest release.
#

name: immich

services:
  immich-server:
    container_name: immich_server
    volumes:
     - /path/to/my/photos:/external_libs/photos
     - /path/to/secret/file:/immich_api_key.secret:ro
  ...
  immich-folder-album-creator:
    container_name: immich_folder_album_creator
    image: salvoxia/immich-folder-album-creator:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      API_URL: http://immich_server:2283/api
      API_KEY_FILE: "/immich_api_key.secret"
      ROOT_PATH: /external_libs/photos
      CRON_EXPRESSION: "0 * * * *"
      TZ: Europe/Berlin
      # Remove offline assets and delete empty albums after each run
      SYNC_MODE: "2"