immich-folder-album-creator/README.md

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 v1.111.x and below

Disclaimer

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

Installation

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] [-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] 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 libarary'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

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -r ROOT_PATH, --root-path ROOT_PATH
                        Additional external libarary 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
                        A string containing a list of folders, sub-folder sequences or file names separated by ':' that will be ignored. (default: )

Plain example without optional arguments:

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

The 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.

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 The root_path
API_URL	yes	The root API URL of immich, e.g. https://immich.mydomain.com/api/
API_KEY	yes	The Immich API Key to use
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
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
INSECURE	no	A string containing a list of folders, sub-folder sequences or file names separated by ':' that will be ignored.

Run the container with Docker

To perform a manually triggered run, 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 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:

version: "3.8"

#
# 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
  ...
  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:3001/api
      API_KEY: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
      ROOT_PATH: /external_libs/photos
      CRON_EXPRESSION: "0 * * * *"
      TZ: Europe/Berlin

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
/external_libs/photos/2020/02 Feb
/external_libs/photos/2020/02 Feb/Vacation
/external_libs/photos/2020/08 Aug/Vacation
/external_libs/photos/Birthdays/John
/external_libs/photos/Birthdays/Jane
/external_libs/photos/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 nunmber 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

⚠️ 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.