Written 3 Oct 2026. This is a how-to, not a product card.

Back up phone photos with Immich

Immich is a photo library you run yourself. This weekend: Docker Compose on the old PC, the web page open, and one phone uploading on house Wi-Fi. Not a full move off Google Photos or iCloud yet.

Need a computer that stays on first? That is your first weekend. Happy just copying the camera roll into a folder? That still works: save phone photos to the house share. Immich is the next step up, when you want a timeline, albums and automatic upload from the phone.

Skip until you have RAM and disk

Immich asks for at least 6 GB of RAM (8 GB is comfortable) and 2 CPU cores. A 4 GB box can run it only with the machine-learning features turned off. From SSH:

free -h

df -h

Photos need room, and Immich adds about 10–20% on top for thumbnails and converted video. If the system disk is small, put the photos on a USB disk first: put the house folder on a USB disk. Keep the database on the computer's own disk, not a network share.

Debian or Ubuntu Server is the easy path: what OS to put on it. Immich's own docs warn that Windows, macOS and Docker inside a Proxmox LXC are harder.

Install Docker

Immich runs as a few containers. Docker's own script installs Docker Engine and the Compose plugin on Debian or Ubuntu. Download it, read it, then run it:

curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com -o ~/get-docker.sh

less ~/get-docker.sh

sudo sh ~/get-docker.sh

Check that both parts answer:

sudo docker version

sudo docker compose version

You want two version numbers. The command is docker compose with a space. The old docker-compose with a dash is not supported by Immich.

Get Immich's files

Make a folder for the two files Immich needs, and download the ones that match the current release:

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

Open the settings file:

nano .env

Change three lines. UPLOAD_LOCATION is where photos go: a path on the big disk, like /srv/photos/immich. DB_PASSWORD should be a long random mix of letters and numbers, no symbols or spaces. Uncomment TZ and set your time zone, like America/Chicago. Leave DB_DATA_LOCATION on the computer's own disk. Save with Ctrl+O, Enter, Ctrl+X.

Start it

sudo docker compose up -d

The first start downloads a few gigabytes. Check on it:

sudo docker compose ps

Wait until the containers say healthy. If one keeps restarting, read its log: sudo docker compose logs immich-server --tail 50.

Open the web page

From a laptop on house Wi-Fi, open http:// plus the computer's address and :2283, for example http://192.168.1.50:2283. Don't know the address? Find it on the house network. Reserve it on the router so it doesn't move: keep the same address.

The first account you create is the admin. Use a real password. Write it down somewhere that is not the old PC.

Point one phone at it

Install the Immich app from the App Store or Google Play. For the server URL, type the same http://address:2283. Log in. Open the backup screen (the cloud icon), pick the camera album, and turn backup on. Take one test photo and watch it show up on the web page.

Uploads work? That is the weekend. Leave the old photos for another night. Don't delete anything from the phone yet.

Keep it from filling the disk

Check the photo disk once a week for the first month:

df -h /srv/photos

Use your own UPLOAD_LOCATION path. If photos share the system disk and it passes 80%, move them before it fills: when the house disk is full.

Back up Immich itself

The phone uploading to Immich is not a backup. It is one copy on the old PC. Immich keeps the photo files and a database that remembers albums, people and who uploaded what. You need both.

Immich already writes a database dump every night into backups inside UPLOAD_LOCATION and keeps the last 14. So one copy of the whole UPLOAD_LOCATION folder to the backup USB covers both:

sudo rsync -a --delete /srv/photos/immich/ /mnt/backup/immich/

Same USB and same rule as a backup of the house folder. Run it after the nightly dump, or put it on the same timer as the house folder.

One more person

If someone else in the house will upload, make them their own account: Administration, Users, Create user. Share albums between accounts. One giant admin pile gets messy fast.

Keep it on the house network

Don't forward port 2283 on the router. Don't put Immich on a public VPS this weekend. Photos from away can wait until uploads at home are boring. When you want that, read SSH from away first; the same no-open-ports idea applies.

Updates

Immich moves fast and some releases need a change to the two files. Read the release notes before you update. Then, in ~/immich-app:

sudo docker compose pull && sudo docker compose up -d

Skip

• Skip opening Immich to the internet.
• Skip importing ten years of Google Photos on the first night.
• Skip deleting photos from the phone until the backup USB has a copy.
• Skip putting the database on a NAS or network share.
• Skip buying a GPU for face search. The CPU is fine.