[Software] Immich 3.3: Self-Host Your Own Google Photos Replacement

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Quick answer: Immich is a free, open-source,
self-hosted photo and video backup app with a web interface and iOS and
Android apps. The current stable release is v3.3.5
(October 21, 2026), and the 3.3 series added shared people, birthday
memories, auto-stacked mobile edits, higher-quality thumbnails and
faster machine learning. You need a Linux machine with at least 6GB of
RAM and 2 CPU cores, Docker with the Compose plugin, and a real backup
plan. It takes about 15 minutes to set up, but Immich itself says it’s
not a backup: you still need copies of your photos elsewhere.

This guide covers what’s new in Immich 3.3, what you need, how to
install it, how to keep it safe, and who should skip it. Everything was
checked against Immich’s official documentation and GitHub releases on
November 1, 2026.

What is Immich?

Immich is a self-hosted alternative to cloud photo services such as
Google Photos. You run the server on your own hardware, the mobile app
uploads your phone’s photos to it, and you browse, search and share from
a web or mobile interface. The project is open source under the GNU AGPL
v3 license.

The official documentation lists these built-in features: mobile
backup, facial recognition, smart search, external libraries, partner
sharing, shared albums, tags, a locked folder, reverse geocoding, an
editor, XMP sidecar support, a command-line tool, and
hardware-accelerated machine learning and transcoding.

What’s new in Immich 3.3

Immich v3.3.0 was released on October 7, 2026. These are the
highlights from the official release notes.

Feature What it does
Shared people Share a recognized person with another user on your server, so names
and birth dates show up for both of you
Birthday memories A memory featuring previous birthdays on the day it’s a person’s
birthday
Auto-stacked mobile edits Edits made in other phone apps are stacked on the original, not
cluttering the timeline
OAuth claim sync Storage quota, role and preferred username can sync from your
identity provider on every login
Better thumbnails A more accurate resampling method that keeps more detail and
brightness
New OCR models PP-OCRv6 support in tiny, small and medium sizes

Shared people

This is the headline. You can share a person with another user in
your group, and the shared person appears in both users’ people lists on
mobile and web. Both users can edit the name and birth date. The release
notes call out some details:

  • Sharing is directional. Each user needs to share
    each person back for edits to sync both ways.
  • You choose who sees edits. By default a change
    applies to everyone with shared access. The web editor has an “Only me”
    option, and there’s a sharing setting to make that the default.
  • Cross-user merging. You can merge a face from your
    own library with a person shared by someone else. That’s handy if you
    joined a group after running facial recognition.
  • Web only for now. The “Manage access” dialog isn’t
    available on mobile yet.

For families, this means one or two people can name everyone
once.

Better machine learning
(opt-in)

Immich says machine learning is now “significantly faster and uses
less memory” on every backend, including CPU. To get the full benefit,
add this variable to the machine learning container:

MACHINE_LEARNING_MODEL_REVISION=v2

Immich says the new models give numerically equivalent output, so you
don’t need to re-run jobs. The setting is planned to become the default
in a later release. Other changes:

  • Rockchip boards (RKNPU) now support every model in
    the catalog, including OCR.
  • NVIDIA Ampere (30xx) and newer GPUs now use
    TensorRT RTX.
  • OpenVINO cases that gave wrong output at times
    should be resolved.

The release notes say improvements vary by model and backend, and
they don’t publish a benchmark number, so we don’t either. The first
load of a model takes longer because Immich prepares and caches it.

A long-standing fix

The storage size shown on macOS Docker setups should now be correct.
The release notes say a node.js change now exposes the right block size,
and the bug had been open for over three years.

Patch releases since 3.3.0

  • v3.3.1 (October 8): fixes for people sharing and a
    mobile scroll issue, plus a new indicator showing which people are
    shared. The notes also clarify that sharing a person does not share
    their photos.
  • v3.3.3 (October 14): a major performance
    improvement for the Explore page and people queries, plus a fix that
    shows the memories date in every app language. (There is no v3.3.2 on
    the releases list.)
  • v3.3.4 (October 20): a further fix for person query
    performance.
  • v3.3.5 (October 21): a security release. The notes
    say it includes an updated certificate bundle after a certificate
    authority compromise, and Node.js security patches. Immich says it
    doesn’t believe the compromise brings an immediate danger to Immich
    instances, but recommends updating as soon as possible.

If you’re installing today, you’ll get the latest anyway.

What you need

From Immich’s requirements page:

Item Requirement
Operating system Recommended: 64-bit Linux (Ubuntu, Debian and similar). Windows and
macOS via Docker Desktop are possible but discouraged
RAM Minimum 6GB, recommended 8GB
CPU Minimum 2 cores, recommended 4 cores
Architecture amd64 or arm64
Software Docker Engine with the Compose plugin (docker compose,
not the old docker-compose)
Storage A Unix-compatible filesystem such as ext4, ZFS or APFS

A few more notes from the docs:

  • 4GB RAM machines can run Immich with machine
    learning disabled.
  • Old CPUs. Since v3, the amd64 machine learning
    container needs the x86-64-v2 level, which Immich says covers most CPUs
    from around 2012 on. The last version supporting x86-64-v1 is v2.7.5,
    which is no longer supported.
  • The database should be on a local SSD. The Postgres
    data (1–3GB typically) should never be on a network share.
  • Plan for extra space. Thumbnails and transcoded
    video can add 10–20% to the size of your library on average.
  • Docker in LXC containers is not recommended. A full
    virtual machine is fine.

How to install Immich
with Docker Compose

Docker Compose is the method Immich recommends for production. The
steps below are from the official docs.

Step 1: Download the files.

mkdir ./immich-app
cd ./immich-app
wget -O docker-compose.yml https://github.com/immich-app/immich/releases/latest/download/docker-compose.yml
wget -O .env https://github.com/immich-app/immich/releases/latest/download/example.env

Step 2: Edit the .env file. The default
contents look like this:

UPLOAD_LOCATION=./library
DB_DATA_LOCATION=./postgres
# TZ=Etc/UTC
IMMICH_VERSION=v3
DB_PASSWORD=postgres
DB_USERNAME=postgres
DB_DATABASE_NAME=immich
  • Set UPLOAD_LOCATION to a new directory with plenty of
    free space.
  • Set DB_DATA_LOCATION to local SSD storage.
  • Change DB_PASSWORD to a random value using only letters
    and numbers (A–Z, a–z, 0–9).
  • Uncomment TZ= and set your time zone.
  • IMMICH_VERSION=v3 follows the current major version.
    You can pin a specific version such as v3.3.5 instead.

Step 3: Start it.

docker compose up -d

If you see an error such as
unknown shorthand flag: 'd' in -d, you probably have an
outdated Docker package. Immich’s docs recommend installing Docker from
Docker’s official repository.

Then open http://<your-server-ip>:2283 in a
browser and click Getting Started. The first user to register becomes
the admin and can add other users. Log in to the iOS or Android app with
the same server URL to start backing up your phone.

Other install options listed in the docs include Kubernetes,
Portainer, Unraid, TrueNAS, Synology and QNAP. The community-maintained
ones are labeled as such, and an experimental install script is also
listed.

Keep it updated, and know
the rules

Immich uses semantic versioning. Its docs say that breaking changes
are meant to be limited to major releases, but a few things matter:

  • Read the release notes before upgrading, especially
    for major versions.
  • Upgrade command:
    docker compose pull && docker compose up -d from
    your Immich directory. If you pin IMMICH_VERSION, update it
    first.
  • No downgrades. Immich says downgrading, even within
    a minor version, is not supported.
  • Update phones first. The mobile app generally works
    with the current and previous major version, but the server only works
    with the matching major version.
  • No backports. Immich encourages everyone to run the
    latest stable release.

Backups: the part you can’t
skip

Self-hosting means you’re the cloud provider. Immich’s docs recommend
a 3-2-1 backup strategy: three copies, on two kinds of
storage, with one off-site. Here’s what to know:

  • The database matters. Immich keeps file paths and
    user metadata in the database and doesn’t scan the library folder, so
    you need database backups.
  • Automatic database dumps are created in
    UPLOAD_LOCATION/backups. Per the docs, the defaults are
    daily at 2:00 AM, keeping the last 14. You can change this in
    Administration > Settings.
  • Dumps don’t include photos. They contain only
    metadata, so you must also back up the files in
    UPLOAD_LOCATION.
  • You still need a real backup tool. The docs say
    their instructions only explain what to back up.

Think of Immich as a private photo library, not a backup. If it’s
your only copy of irreplaceable photos, set up an off-site backup
first.

Is Immich right for you?

Choose it if:

  • You’re comfortable running Docker containers on a home server.
  • You want automatic phone backup, facial recognition and smart search
    without a cloud subscription.
  • You care about owning your photos.
  • Your hardware meets the 6GB and 2 core minimum.

Skip it if:

  • You don’t want to maintain a server. Updates, backups and security
    are your job.
  • You can’t back up off-site.
  • You only have an old Raspberry Pi or a system with 4GB of RAM and
    want all features. You’ll have to disable machine learning.
  • You need to expose it to the internet but aren’t comfortable with
    reverse proxies and security.

Because the project releases frequently, expect regular updates,
which is a plus for bug fixes and a chore if you hate maintenance.

FAQ

What is the latest version
of Immich?

On November 1, 2026, the latest stable release on GitHub was still
v3.3.5, published October 21, 2026. Version 3.3.0 came out on October 7.
A first release candidate for the next version, v3.4.0-rc.1, was posted
on October 30, 2026; Immich labels it a release candidate that may
contain bugs or breaking changes, so stick with v3.3.5 unless you want
to test.

Is Immich free?

Yes. It’s open source under the GNU AGPL v3 license. The project asks
users to consider supporting it financially, and its site has links to
buy a license and merchandise.

Can Immich replace Google
Photos?

For automatic phone backup, search, face grouping and sharing, it
covers a lot of the same ground. The trade-off is that you manage the
hardware, updates and backups yourself.

How much RAM does Immich
need?

At least 6GB, with 8GB recommended, and at least 2 CPU cores (4
recommended). With 4GB of RAM you can run it with machine learning
turned off.

Can I run Immich on
Windows or macOS?

Docker Desktop or WSL 2 on Windows, and Docker Desktop on Mac, are
possible, but the docs strongly discourage non-Linux systems and say
support will be limited. On Windows, the database can’t sit on an NTFS
or FAT drive.

Does Immich support GPU
acceleration?

Yes, for machine learning. The docs list ARM NN (Mali), CUDA
(NVIDIA), ROCm (AMD), OpenVINO (Intel) and RKNN (Rockchip) as backends.
It’s labeled experimental and may not work on all systems.

How do I back up Immich?

Back up both the database dumps and the files in
UPLOAD_LOCATION, and follow a 3-2-1 strategy. Immich
creates automatic database dumps, but not photo backups.

Can I downgrade
Immich if an update goes wrong?

Immich says downgrading isn’t supported. Back up before upgrading,
and read the release notes first.

Sources

All checked November 1, 2026.

By Early Adopted Editorial Team. Last updated: November 1,
2026

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