Moving from no storage template to storage template - migration job leaves thousands of empty folders

[chris114782]

The bug

I've just used a storage template for the first time, migrating from no storage template.

I added the storage template, clicked save and triggered the storage template migration job.

This has worked fine, and all of my photos now use the storage template, however the upload directory is now left with 44924 empty directories, looking like:

chris@puddin /mnt/storage/immich/library/upload $ find . -type d -empty
...
./1cf3d6dd-3e2e-4db3-ba35-4dbc6a726495/35/10
./1cf3d6dd-3e2e-4db3-ba35-4dbc6a726495/35/89
./1cf3d6dd-3e2e-4db3-ba35-4dbc6a726495/35/ed
./1cf3d6dd-3e2e-4db3-ba35-4dbc6a726495/35/bc
...
chris@puddin /mnt/storage/immich/library/upload $ find . -type d -empty | wc -l
44924

Is this expected behavior or a bug in the migration? If it is expected, can I safely clear these empty folders out?

The OS that Immich Server is running on

Ubuntu 22.04 (Docker)

Version of Immich Server

v1.103.1

Version of Immich Mobile App

not in use

Platform with the issue

• Server
• Web
• Mobile

Your docker-compose.yml content

name: immich

services:
  immich-server:
    image: ghcr.io/immich-app/immich-server:${IMMICH_VERSION:-release}
    labels:
      - "traefik.enable=true"
      - "traefik.http.routers.immich.entrypoints=secure"
      - "traefik.http.routers.immich.rule=Host(`photos.redacted.tld`)"
      - "traefik.http.services.immich.loadbalancer.server.port=3001"
    command: ['start.sh', 'immich']
    volumes:
      - ${UPLOAD_LOCATION}:/usr/src/app/upload
      - /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro
    env_file:
      - .env
    depends_on:
      - redis
      - database
    restart: always
    networks:
      - photos
      - ingress

  immich-microservices:
    container_name: immich_microservices
    image: ghcr.io/immich-app/immich-server:${IMMICH_VERSION:-release}
    extends:
      file: hwaccel.transcoding.yml
      service: quicksync
    command: ['start.sh', 'microservices']
    volumes:
      - ${UPLOAD_LOCATION}:/usr/src/app/upload
      - /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro
    env_file:
      - .env
    depends_on:
      - redis
      - database
    restart: always
    networks:
      - photos

  immich-machine-learning:
    container_name: immich_machine_learning
    image: ghcr.io/immich-app/immich-machine-learning:${IMMICH_VERSION:-release}-openvino
    extends:
      file: hwaccel.ml.yml
      service: openvino
    volumes:
      - model-cache:/cache
    env_file:
      - .env
    restart: always
      - photos
 
  redis:
    container_name: immich_redis
    image: registry.hub.docker.com/library/redis:6.2-alpine@sha256:84882e87b54734154586e5f8abd4dce69fe7311315e2fc6d67c29614c8de2672
    restart: always
    networks:
      - photos

  database:
    container_name: immich_postgres
    image: registry.hub.docker.com/tensorchord/pgvecto-rs:pg14-v0.2.0@sha256:90724186f0a3517cf6914295b5ab410db9ce23190a2d9d0b9dd6463e3fa298f0
    environment:
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: ${DB_PASSWORD}
      POSTGRES_USER: ${DB_USERNAME}
      POSTGRES_DB: ${DB_DATABASE_NAME}
    volumes:
      - ${DB_DATA_LOCATION}:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    restart: always
    networks:
      - photos

  db_backup:
    image: prodrigestivill/postgres-backup-local:14
    user: 1001:1001
    restart: always
    env_file:
      - .env
    environment:
      POSTGRES_HOST: database
      POSTGRES_CLUSTER: 'TRUE'
      POSTGRES_USER: ${DB_USERNAME}
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: ${DB_PASSWORD}
      POSTGRES_DB: ${DB_DATABASE_NAME}
      SCHEDULE: '@daily'
      POSTGRES_EXTRA_OPTS: '--clean --if-exists'
      BACKUP_DIR: /backups/immich_db_dumps
      TZ: Europe/London
    volumes:
      - backups:/backups
    depends_on:
    networks:
      - photos

volumes:
  model-cache:
  backups:
    external: true

networks:
  ingress:
    external: true
  photos:
    driver: bridge

Your .env content

# The location where your uploaded files are stored
UPLOAD_LOCATION=/mnt/storage/immich/library

# The Immich version to use. You can pin this to a specific version like "v1.71.0"
IMMICH_VERSION=release

DB_PASSWORD=redacted
DB_HOSTNAME=immich_postgres
DB_USERNAME=postgres
DB_DATABASE_NAME=immich
DB_DATA_LOCATION=/mnt/ssdstorage/immich/database

REDIS_HOSTNAME=immich_redis

### Reproduction steps

```bash
1. Upload a bunch of photos to immich with storage templates turned off.
2. Enable a storage template (I used `{{y}}/{{y}}-{{MM}}-{{dd}}/{{filename}}`)
3. Trigger the storage migration job

Relevant log output

No response

Additional information

No response

[mmomjian]

This is normal. You may delete the empty sub folders (2 character ones) if desired.

[TransRapid]

Why not allow a process to automatically remove folders if they are empty, this should be a pretty simple thing to write either as a shell script, or even in python.

[mmomjian]

You’re welcome to do so. Immich tries to be extra cautious in order to not accidentally delete your pictures, and for this reason I don’t see us adding this anytime soon since it does not hurt anything. Of course I could be wrong.

[TransRapid]

That's understandable, better to be conservative in this sort of thing. I haven't got to that point yet time wise, but I will share whatever I make.