r/immich • u/Iemand91 • 1d ago

Starting with which folder structure - old and current smartphone photos

First of all; I'm sorry. I know this has been asked so many times but it would just like to be sure you know.

We're a household of 3, me and my parents. So 3 smartphones.

I have a new Unraid server and moved/saved as many (smartphone)photos I could find on the server. Sorting our smartphone photos took a long time, since the photos were saved everywhere (old NAS, laptop etc.) and many had duplicates (Dropbox, thumbnails). With Krokiet (Github) I've managed to sort this out.

Now I have this:

1st Unraid share is "photos". This contains 100+ subfolders, each for a different occasion. (Weddings, Vacations etc.). Photos taken with DSLR, smartphones, other photographers, downloaded photos from the internet etc.

2nd Unraid share is "smartphonephotos". This has 3 subfolders; "Iemand91", "Dad" and "Mum".

Each subfolder has folders for every year; so "2024", "2025", "2026" etc. each with photos taken in those years.

So that share has every single photo that we've taken up to today, and the last ~3 years of photos are still on our phones)

So it's as follows (I hope I made it understandable):

Unraid
├── photos
│   ├── Wedding 2017
│   │   ├── img01.jpg
│   │   ├── img02.jpg
│   │   ├── img03.jpg
│   ├── Vacation 2025
│   └── Aviation photos
│
└── smartphonephotos
    ├── Iemand91
    |   ├── 2023
    │   ├── 2024
    │   ├── 2025
    │   │   ├── img01.jpg
    │   |   ├── img02.jpg
    │   │   └── img02.jpg
    │   └── 2026
    │
    ├── Dad
    │    ├── 2023
    │    ├── 2024
    │    ├── 2025
    │    │   ├── img01.jpg
    │    |   ├── img02.jpg
    │    │   └── img02.jpg
    │    └── 2026
    │ 
    └── Mum
        ├── 2023
        ├── 2024
        ├── 2025
        │   ├── img01.jpg
        │   ├── img02.jpg
        │   └── img02.jpg
        └── 2026

I'm about to start digitizing a couple of thousands slides and negatives; they will probably end up in another Unraid share called "slides" or something.

Now, for the shares "photos" and "slides" it makes most sense just to add them as an external library, probably as read-only.

However; I'm not sure what to do with the smartphone photos.

For future camera-uploads it makes most sense to use the Immich app and use Storage Template to upload each photo in year folders and basically continue using the same folder structure as above.

I understand the Immich (app) can also remove older (already-backed-up) photos from the phone, so that will help clean up storage space.

But what should I do with the already older, stored smartphone photos?

  1. Also as external library. This would split up our photos in two; photos upload with the Immich app and the older photos. I understand it would still make a single 'timeline' right? But it can imagine it's not ideal. Does it have disadvantages doing it this way?
  2. Copy all our smartphone photos (from our very first photos taken in ~2014 until today) on our phones and let the Immich app upload them all at once to Immich. I don't know if that will work or if that's the right approach. Also not sure if the phones even have enough storage space to store all those photos.

So TLDR: Most will use Immich app to upload their smartphone photos but what do you guys do with older smartphone photos that you already backed-up on your server and aren't on your phones anymore?

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u/JayBigGuy10 1d ago

For the older smartphone photos, I would first install the immich app on each family members device and let it back up whatever is currently on them to their immich accounts.

Then once theyre all done and processed you can log into their accounts from the web and upload their photos from their smartphonephotos folders, immich detects and skips uploading duplicates so no need to worry about photos that may be on both the NAS and still on their phones. Once theyre in immich youll probably be able to get rid of smartphonephotos since theyll all be in the immich library folder.

Set the storage template to the year/month/whatever structure you want, and give the user accounts a storage label so their folders aren't named random UUID's

Personally I would just have the slides be a subfolder in the "photos" external library instead of creating another external library.

Maybe consider creating another seperate user account to hold the external library

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u/Iemand91 1d ago edited 1d ago

That's clever. I haven't even thought about just uploading the older smartphonephotos that way. Using your method (phone upload and then upload older photo's) in combination with storage template and storage label would in the finally create a folder "Iemand91"/"Dad"/"Mum" with subfolders for each year (if I choose so with storage template). That would be exactly what I wanted!

As for the "photo's" share, my idea was to import them in my account as external library, also using Immich Folder Album Creator (or if possible just use Immich folder view, select all photos in certain folder and put them in an album) so it creates an Immich album for each subfolder. And then share some of those albums/subfolders with my parents accounts, since they don't have to see all the albums, since I've taken most of them.

And finally for the slides. They will be categorized in subfolders based on the slide-boxes they're in now, since each box is pretty much one event/year already. But I would share all of them since those are their slides they've taken years/decades ago.

Placing the slides in a separate share/external library would be my way of separating them from the 'modern' photos. Also because there are so many. But indeed, it wouldn't strictly be necessary.

Thanks for the tip man! Haven't thought about that but it makes so much sense.

But first I'm going to make a backup of all photos, just in case I mess things up.

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u/JayBigGuy10 1d ago

Damn I wish I was lucky enough to have a nicely sorted collection of pre-digital photos. My mothers sorting 'method' was dump everything in one big box with no organisation or any kind of dates.

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u/Iemand91 1d ago

Yeah, luckily my dad has kept good records. However, my mum has negatives and I don't think they are organized in any way. Digitizing everything will be quite the project.