Add External Library in Immich

1

Hi All,

I am the proud owner of a new Umbrel Pro device that I equipped with four 4TB SSDs.
My objective, is to use this Umbrel Pro to host all of my photo albums that are currently stored on a Synology NAS.

I read good things about Immich, so want to use this to replace Synology Photos which I currently use.
So, I in the default Photos folder on the Umbrel, I created a subfolder Albums. In this subfolder Albums I created a subfolder Christmas 2025 and copied the contents of the same named Christmas 2025 folder on my Synology NAS to this folder on the Umbrel. So using the Files app on the Umbrel Pro and browsing to \Photos\Albums\Christmas 2025 I can see all photos there. So far so good.

Then I installed Immich from the Umbrel App Store and went through the initial setup steps.

In Immich, I then clicked on Add External Library where I need to enter a path (there is no browse option). I tried \Photos\Albums, \Photos\Albums\Christmas 2025 (also with forward slashes instead of back slashes) to no avail.
I’m sure in this community, there must be many happy Immich end users that, like me, installed it on their Umbrel Home of Umbrel Pro device that ran into the same challenge.
Can anyone please tell me what path I need to enter in the Add Folder question in Immich when wanting to add an External Library? Help is much appreciated!

2

Nobody a solution for my post?
Should be possible right when installing Immich from the Umbrel App Store to see/use photo’s copied to the default Photos folder available in my Umbrel Pro (same for Umbrel Home users I guess).

3

Hello,

Yes it’s possible, you need to edit the docker-compose.yml, just follow these steps.

--1 browse folder applications from Files Tools in Umbrel

2–Edit Docker-Compose in the Immich folder

docker-compose
docker-compose1492×881 117 KB

3 – Adjust and Add your PATH in the file in the section Volumes, for me the folder is a mount point to the folder /home/Downloads/PHOTOS

The Folder for Immich is /PHOTO (the End of the Syntaxe)

  • ${UMBREL_ROOT}/home/Downloads/PHOTOS:/PHOTOS

add_path
add_path1491×929 185 KB

4 — Save and restart the Immich Container

6 – Add External Library in Immich

7 – Edit your Library and simply Set the name you have SET in Step 3.

For me /PHOTOS

It’ Works for me, i hope it will help you !

Enjoy Umbrel :slight_smile:

I made screenshots for all steps, but i can only upload 2. You can contact me if you want all screenshots.

4

Oh wow lavolo, thank you so much for this!!
I will definitely give this a try.

Too bad though, that one has to go through these (quite advanced) steps to get an application (Immich in this case) working that was installed from the Umbrel App Store for something simple as being able to work with photos that were copied to the standard Photos folder on the Umbrel.
I do think the Immich Developers should be looking into this.

Nevertheless, I’ll give your steps a go and let you know if it worked out for me as well.

Cheers!

5

As a follow-up to my previous post, I want to let you know that lavolo’s steps worked like a charm :ok_hand:
In Immich, I now see the photo’s that I copied from my Synology NAS to a Albums subfolder under the default Photos folder on the Umbrel Pro.
The only thing is, that in Immich, then again you have to create an Album and then selecting the same photos to have them in an Album.
Would it be possible that Immich can create albums based on folders?
E.g. Have \Photos\Albums as an external library (see lavolo’s steps) in Immich where I copy folders from my Synology (e.g. Christmas 2025, Summer holiday 2024 etc.) to \Photos\Albums on the Umbrel and then that Immich can create albums based on this folder structure?

6

Hi, i m agree wirh you, if the app come from the store, docker path to umbrel should be by design !

Hope the dev team understand many peoples wants user friendly OS.