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!
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).
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.
As a follow-up to my previous post, I want to let you know that lavolo’s steps worked like a charm
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?
Also I didn’t manage to do this. So basically I have all my photos on my Umbrel PC in the folder Photos, Could you provide me with the exact address I have to write in the Immich container and also in the Import of external library in Immich itself?
@ Crussader87 On umbrelOS 2.0 you can do this from the app settings, no need to edit docker-compose
Right-click Immich on your Umbrel home screen > Settings > Storage > Access to your folders → Advanced → Add custom folder.
Select “server” as the app service, enter /photos for “Path inside app service”, and use the folder picker to select your existing Photos folder.
I’d turn on “Read-only” so Immich can read your photos without modifying or deleting the originals.
Click “Add folder”, then “Apply and restart”.
Then open Immich as an admin and go to Administration > External Libraries > Create Library.
Choose the user who should own the library, add /photos under Folders, and run “Scan New Library Files” from the library’s three-dot menu.
The important bit is that /photos matches in both places. That’s the path Immich sees inside its container, while the folder picker tells Umbrel where your actual Photos folder is.
Thanks but I’m having trouble with the right path of the folder Photos, I’ve tried only /Photos
and It didn’t work, then I opened a terminal and found the full path as shown on the screenshot but still no luck. Al the previos steps did them without any trouble.
ah, the path in your screenshot is the location on Umbrel, but Immich needs the path you assigned inside its container.
If you entered /photos in “Path inside app service” earlier, try exactly /photos in that Immich dialog. It’s case-sensitive, so /Photos with a capital P is a different path.
If that still gives you the same error, could you share a screenshot of the custom folder entry in Umbrel’s Immich settings? It should show the “server” service, /photos as the path inside it, and your Photos folder selected. Make sure you clicked “Apply and restart” after adding it too.
The problem was that I selected the Photos folder on the menu but when I clicked on Show full path inside app it ended up being /mnt/external-library , when I entered this one it worked!
