Set Up Your Own Photos Server Instead of Google Photos or Something Else by Using Immich and Tailscale

The solution is a free software called Immich https://immich.app and you can run it at your home (or in a rented server somewhere) on an old machine with some USB drives or set it up on fancy stuff with RAID etc.

There are four parts to it:

Setting up the Immich Server

• Go watch the awesome video that Tailscale folks have produced: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guHoZ68N3XM

Setting it up with a URL that is only accessible to you (Have you heard of Tailscale?!)

• Tailscale to the rescue again. Watch the same video as above.

Download and install Immich-go, which allows you to upload large amounts of photos and videos to your Immich server with either your own local media or stuff you downloaded from Google Takeout.

• Download and install: https://github.com/simulot/immich-go
• Basic commands - to upload from Google Takeout (download as zip): ./immich-go upload from-google-photos --server=https://your-immich-server-url --api-key=get-it-from-immich-portal /location-of-your-google-takeout-files
• Basic commands - to upload from a folder in your system: ./immich-go upload from-folder --server=https://your-immich-server-url --api-key=get-it-from-immich-portal /
• For very large files and slow networks, you might want to keep the session longer so the files actually get uploaded. The switch to add to the above is: --client-timeout=8h. Change the 8h (eight hours) to whatever suits you.

Set up backup jobs to at least another disk (ideally three copies)

• Of course, back up your main data folder. Use rsync or if in a VM, you’ve got better tools.

Enjoy!

• Download the app to your phone, set up autobackups, tinker around

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