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Open-source alternative to Google Photos

Immich is a free, open-source Google Photos alternative with automatic phone backup, face search and shared albums. Google Photos fills your Google storage and then asks for a monthly plan; self-hosted Immich uses your own disk.

1 alternative Free app Our pick: Immich

At a glance

App Good for Code Import from Google Photos Ease of use
Immich Families and teams with many photos who want them backed up privately Code Open source Import from Google Photos Yes Easy

Why look for an alternative to Google Photos?

Google Photos backs up the photos and videos on your phone and lets you search, share and relive them, with face grouping and automatic albums. Since June 2021 every photo counts toward the 15 GB of free storage each Google account shares with Gmail and Drive.

People look for an alternative once their library outgrows the free space and the monthly storage plan becomes a fixed cost, or because they would rather not have a large company analyse their family photos. A self-hosted app such as Immich backs up your phone the same way, keeps original quality, and stores everything on your own server, limited only by its disk.

How Immich compares

Immich

Back up your photos and videos, and find any picture fast.

The closest self-hosted match to Google Photos. Its phone app backs up photos and videos automatically, and the web and phone apps have a timeline, albums, sharing, face recognition, a map, memories and search in plain words. It keeps original quality.

What you gain
  • No storage plan to upgrade; you are limited only by your server's disk
  • Your photos are not scanned or used to train someone else's AI
  • Original quality is kept for every photo and video
What is different
  • Storage is limited by the size of your server's disk
  • Face recognition and smart search need a server with plenty of memory
  • Immich is young and changes quickly, so keep a backup of your originals
Easy Open source · AGPL-3.0-only
Deploy Immich About Immich

Moving from Google Photos

Download your library with Google Takeout, then upload it to Immich with immich-go, a free community tool that reads Takeout files and keeps each photo's date, place and album. Install the Immich phone app and turn on backup for new photos. Keep Google Photos until you have checked that everything arrived.

Questions

What is the best open-source alternative to Google Photos?

Immich is the free, open-source alternative to Google Photos for backing up photos in the catalogue today. The closest self-hosted match to Google Photos. Its phone app backs up photos and videos automatically, and the web and phone apps have a timeline, albums, sharing, face recognition, a map, memories and search in plain words. It keeps original quality.

Does Immich recognise faces like Google Photos?

Yes. Immich detects faces and groups them into people, and finds photos when you search in plain words such as "beach at sunset". Both run on your own server.

Is my photo library private with Immich?

Yes. Photos are stored on your own server and are not scanned or used by anyone else.

Is it really free?

Yes, the app is free. To run them you need Cloudgate and a server. Use hosted Cloudgate, which can also provide the server, or install Cloudgate on a server of your own for free. Cloudgate's plans and prices are at cloudgate.octabyte.io/pricing. One server can run several apps.

Do I need a developer?

No. Cloudgate installs the app on your server and gives it a secure web address. You use it in your browser.