Move Immich library from one device to another
reddit / selfhosted

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93simoon · 2023-12-26 13:03

Hi guys,  I setup Immich through docker desktop on my Windows PC to
play with it and test:

* I loaded my Photos takeout library
* I  noticed that some items (pictures not directly taken by me - eg
pictures sent to me on whatsapp) didn't have the correct date. So i
manually adjusted the date on these items.

Now I want to setup Immich on my home server that is always online. I
followed these instructions
([https://immich.app/docs/administration/backup-and-
restore/](https://immich.app/docs/administration/backup-and-restore/))
to backup and restore the database and started the Immich stack on my
home server.

I  don't have any pictures in my library on my home server so of
course  I'm seeing all the blurry/missing photos in the web interface.
I tried  to paste a day's folder from my first device onto my second
device and  it now sits at :\~/immich-
library/library/admin/2013/2013-09-23. It  contains 6 photos.

I refreshed the  page, went to that day, but I still see the
blurry/missing thumbnails.  Any other steps I need to complete before
I see these photos correctly?

I can also download those 6 pictures from the web interface, but I
still can't see them neither as a thumbnail nor fully opened

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smbell · 2023-12-26 17:01

My guess is you've changed the file paths. There's this warning on the
page you linked:

`Immich saves file paths in the database, it does not scan the library
folder to update the database so backups are crucial.`

So from the perspective of the docker instance the path to the image
needs to be the same in the new location.

I did something similar. I moved all my images from an old drobo nas
to a new synology nas. I'm using docker compose and I adjusted the
docker volume path to point to the new network drive. I had to keep
everything inside that folder exactly the same, straight copy over.

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93simoon · 2023-12-26 17:25

When you say you adjusted the docker volum path, do you mean the
upload location? If yes I changed the upload location in the .env file
before creating the stack:

​

\# The location where your uploaded files are
storedUPLOAD\_LOCATION=/home/pi/immich-library

​

And when I check the location in the info panel in the UI it says the
correct path on the home server: https://imgur.com/a/HjWh8lw

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smbell · 2023-12-26 17:52

That's exactly what I was thinking, but looks like that's not the
problem.

The my next move would be to just copy the whole library over, see if
that helps.

If you click into the image of the ones you moved over does it show
the image, just the thumbnail is missing? There's also a thumbs folder
you could copy over, or rerun the thumbnail generation job in the
admin page.

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93simoon · 2023-12-26 18:33

That was it, I opened the SQL dump and looked for the thumb files
corresponding to the images I copied over, copied the corresponding
thumbs as well and that was it.

Thanks for the help

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AndyPro720 · 2023-12-30 08:12

Would you suggesting the entire immich folder and pasting it on the
new HDD say, or creating the dump, then reinstalling immich ? Also
could you elaborate a bit on how the second method works

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smbell · 2023-12-30 12:21

I did a 'cp -r' of the whole immich directory. Worked great.

Didn't reinstall immich. Just 'docker-compose down', update the .env
file, then 'docker-compose up -d'

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AndyPro720 · 2023-12-30 12:23

Makes sense