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Immich

Immich is your own photo library. Your phone backs up to your Arq instead of to Google Photos or iCloud, and you browse everything — by date, place, person, or search — from the app or any browser at home.

Immich signs in with your Arq account, so there is no separate password to create.

Back up your phone​

  1. Install Immich from the App Store or Google Play.
  2. When it asks for a server, enter your Arq's photo address — https://photos. followed by your Arq's address — and tap Next.
  3. Tap Sign in with your Arq account.
  4. Turn on Backup, and leave your phone on charge overnight for the first run.

The first backup can take several hours and is easiest on Wi‑Fi. After that, new photos go across in the background as you take them.

Bring across photos you already have​

Your Arq can import a library you are moving from somewhere else — a Google Photos export, or an export from a Mac. Open Immich from your Arq and follow the import steps; they tell you what to ask for and how to send it across.

Two things worth knowing before you start:

  • Albums usually survive, but only if the export includes them. Photos copied straight off a phone or a memory card arrive as one big pile, because that is all the files themselves say.
  • An export is a second full copy of your library, so you need room for it on the computer you export from.

Photos from somewhere else​

Old backups, a memory card, a disc of wedding photos, a .zip a relative sent you — anything that is just files can go straight in through the browser.

  1. If it is a .zip, unzip it on your computer first. Immich reads photos and videos, not archives.
  2. Go to your Arq's photo address in a browser on your computer — the same photos. address the phone app uses.
  3. Create an album first if you want these photos grouped, then open it.
  4. Drag the folder onto the page, or use Upload.

Very large collections — tens of thousands of files — are better handled by Immich's own command-line uploader, which resumes if it is interrupted. See Immich's CLI documentation.

Uploading the same photo twice is safe. Immich recognises a file it already has and skips it, so you can re-run an upload that stopped partway without ending up with duplicates.

If the dates look wrong​

Immich takes the date from the photo itself — the information the camera wrote when the picture was taken. Photos that have lost that information, such as screenshots, images saved from a chat app, or scans, fall back to the date of the file, which is often the day you copied it rather than the day it was taken.

You can correct these in Immich: select the photos, then Change date and time.

Frequently asked​

Do my photos leave my Arq? No. They stay on your Arq. Nothing is uploaded to us or to anyone else.

Can my family have their own libraries? Yes. Everyone in the household signs in with their own Arq account and has their own library, and albums can be shared with the rest of the house.

What happens if my phone is lost or replaced? Everything already backed up stays on your Arq. Sign in on the new phone and turn Backup on again.

Can I still free up space on my phone? Yes. Once photos are safely on your Arq, deleting them from your phone's own gallery does not remove them from Immich.