Immich Folder Album Creator

This is a python script designed to automatically create albums in Immich from a folder structure mounted into the Immich container. This is useful for automatically creating and populating albums for external libraries. Using the provided docker image, the script can simply be added to the Immich compose stack and run along the rest of Immich's containers.

Current compatibility: Immich v1.100.x and below

Disclaimer

This script is mostly based on the following original script: REDVM/immich_auto_album.py

Installation

Bare Python Script

1. Download the script and its requirements

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Salvoxia/immich-folder-album-creator/main/immich_auto_album.py -o immich_auto_album.py
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Salvoxia/immich-folder-album-creator/main/requirements.txt -o requirements.txt

2. Install requirements

pip3 install -r requirements.txt

3. Run the script

python3 ./immich_auto_album.py -h
usage: immich_auto_album.py [-h] [-u] [-a ALBUM_LEVELS] [-s ALBUM_SEPARATOR] [-c CHUNK_SIZE] [-C FETCH_CHUNK_SIZE] [-l {CRITICAL,ERROR,WARNING,INFO,DEBUG}] root_path api_url api_key

Create Immich Albums from an external library path based on the top level folders

positional arguments:
  root_path             The external libarary's root path in Immich
  api_url               The root API URL of immich, e.g. https://immich.mydomain.com/api/
  api_key               The Immich API Key to use

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -u, --unattended      Do not ask for user confirmation after identifying albums. Set this flag to run script as a cronjob. (default: False)
  -a ALBUM_LEVELS, --album-levels ALBUM_LEVELS
                        Number of levels of sub-folder for which to create separate albums. Must be at least 1. (default: 1)
  -s ALBUM_SEPARATOR, --album-separator ALBUM_SEPARATOR
                        Separator string to use for compound album names created from nested folders. Only effective if -a is set to a value > 1 (default: )
  -c CHUNK_SIZE, --chunk-size CHUNK_SIZE
                        Maximum number of assets to add to an album with a single API call (default: 2000)
  -C FETCH_CHUNK_SIZE, --fetch-chunk-size FETCH_CHUNK_SIZE
                        Maximum number of assets to fetch with a single API call (default: 5000)
  -l {CRITICAL,ERROR,WARNING,INFO,DEBUG}, --log-level {CRITICAL,ERROR,WARNING,INFO,DEBUG}
                        Log level to use (default: INFO)

Docker

A Docker image is provided to be used as a runtime environment. It can be used to either run the script manually, or via cronjob by providing a crontab expression to the container. The container can then be added to the Immich compose stack directly.

Environment Variables

The environment variables are analoguous to the script's command line arguments.

Environment varible	Mandatory?	Description
ROOT_PATH	yes	The external libarary's root path in Immich
API_URL	yes	The root API URL of immich, e.g. https://immich.mydomain.com/api/
API_KEY	yes	The Immich API Key to use
ALBUM_LEVELS	no	Number of levels of sub-folder for which to create separate albums. Must be at least 1. (default: 1) Refer to How it works for a detailed explanation
ALBUM_SEPARATOR	no	Separator string to use for compound album names created from nested folders. Only effective if -a is set to a value > 1 (default: " ")
CHUNK_SIZE	no	Maximum number of assets to add to an album with a single API call (default: 2000)
FETCH_CHUNK_SIZE	no	Maximum number of assets to fetch with a single API call (default: 5000)
LOG_LEVEL	no	Log level to use (default: INFO), allowed values: CRITICAL,ERROR,WARNING,INFO,DEBUG

Run the container with Docker

To perform a manually triggered run, use the following command:

docker run -e API_URL="https://immich.mydomain.com/api/" -e API_KEY="xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" -e ROOT_PATH="/external_libs/photos" salvoxia/immich-folder-album-creator:latest /script/immich_auto_album.sh

To set up the container to periodically run the script, give it a name, pass the TZ variable and a valid crontab expression as environment variable. This example runs the script every hour:

docker run --name immich-folder-album-creator -e TZ="Europe/Berlin" -e CRON_EXPRESSION="0 * * * *" -e API_URL="https://immich.mydomain.com/api/" -e API_KEY="xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" -e ROOT_PATH="/external_libs/photos" salvoxia/immich-folder-album-creator:latest

Run the container with Docker-Compose

Adding the container to Immich's docker-compose.yml file:

version: "3.8"

#
# WARNING: Make sure to use the docker-compose.yml of the current release:
#
# https://github.com/immich-app/immich/releases/latest/download/docker-compose.yml
#
# The compose file on main may not be compatible with the latest release.
#

name: immich

services:
  immich-server:
    container_name: immich_server
    volumes:
     - /path/to/my/photos:/external_libs/photos
  ...
  immich-folder-album-creator:
    container_name: immich_folder_album_creator
    image: salvoxia/immich-folder-album-creator:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      API_URL: http://immich_server:3001/api
      API_KEY: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
      ROOT_PATH: /external_libs/photos
      CRON_EXPRESSION: "0 * * * *"
      TZ: Europe/Berlin

How it works

The script utilizies Immich's REST API to query all images indexed by Immich, extract the folder for all images that are in the top level of a provided root_path, then creates albums with the names of these folders (if not yet exists) and adds the images to the correct albums.

The following arguments influence what albums are created:
root_path, --album-levels and --album-separator

• root_path is the base path where images are looked for. Only images within that base path will be considered for album creation.
• --album-levels controls how many levels of nested folders are considered when creating albums. The default is 1. For examples see below.
• --album-separator sets the separator used for concatenating nested folder names to create an album name. It is a blank by default.

Examples:
Suppose you provide an external library to Immich under the path /external_libs/photos. The folder structure of photos might look like this:

/external_libs/photos/2020
/external_libs/photos/2020/02 Feb
/external_libs/photos/2020/02 Feb/Vacation
/external_libs/photos/Birthdays/John
/external_libs/photos/Birthdays/Jane
/external_libs/photos/Skiing 2023

Albums created for root_path = /external_libs/photos (--album-levels is implicitly set to 1):

• 2020 (containing all images from 2020 and all sub-folders)
• Birthdays (containing all images from Birthdays itself as well as John and Jane)
• Skiing 2023

Albums created for root_path = /external_libs/photos/Birthdays:

• John
• Jane

Albums created for root_path = /external_libs/photos and --album-levels = 2:

• 2020 (containing all images from 2020 itself, if any)
• 2020 02 Feb (containing all images from 02 Feb itself and 02 Feb/Vacation)
• Birthdays John
• Birthdays Jane
• Skiing 2023

Albums created for root_path = /external_libs/photos, --album-levels = 3 and --album-separator " - " :

• 2020 (containing all images from 2020 itself, if any)
• 2020 - 02 Feb (containing all images from 02 Feb itself, if any)
• 2020 - 02 Feb - Vacation (containing all imags from Vacation)
• Birthdays - John
• Birthdays - Jane
• Skiing 2023

Since Immich does not support real nested albums (yet?), neither does this script.