please recommend a simple selfhosted photo gallery

Submitted ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨hexagonwin@lemmy.today⁩ to ⁨selfhosted@lemmy.world⁩

hi. i’m looking for an extremely simple selfhosted photo gallery software. i have photos from my laptop, a camera, and my phone. they are all rsync’ed onto my server. so on the server I have ~/Pictures/Laptop ~/Pictures/Camera ~/Pictures/Phone filled with JPEG/PNG/HEICs and no subdirectories.

i want to view photos from all three directories on a single timeline/feed, from the web (and if possible, via a mobile app). currently I VNC onto the server to run XnView and check each directory and this is a terrible user experience especially on a phone.

i don’t want to run a separate database or anything complex, so things like Immich or Photoprism are not an option. would be nice to be able to assign a tag to some images (“work”, “computer”, …) but it’s not a necessity. and i don’t need the ability to edit/remove images from the gallery.

i’ve considered rolling my own solution but thought there might be something already available.

thanks!

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WeirdGoesPro@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Immich works really well.

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- hexagonwin@lemmy.today ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I really don’t want another complex service i have to manage. ideally i want something that’s a simple python/perl/php script or something like that.
  
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  - WeirdGoesPro@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I hear you, I went through the same journey. After getting Immich set up, I haven’t had to do a single thing to it. There are scripts that can turn your folders into Immich albums, so I just set up the docker containers, ran the script, and watched as everything was created for me without more labor on my part.
    
    I hope somebody else has the solution you’re looking for, but if you don’t find it, I really think you should give it a whirl because it turned out to be way easier than I expected it to be.
    
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  - frongt@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Immich isn’t complex, and I don’t think it requires a separate database.
    
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  - mrquallzin@pie.eyeofthestorm.place@pie.eyeofthestorm.place ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    You’re likely not going to find something so simple and lightweight. Immich has some setup, but if you want a good gallery that’s the way to go. Don’t be afraid of the learning.
    
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  - non_burglar@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    It does nothing but serve photo. Background tasks are minimal and many of them only run once on new photos.
    
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  - Joelk111@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I feel like this is a case of not wanting to do the “difficult” thing because it sounds difficult when really avoiding the “difficult” thing is more difficult than just doing the “difficult” thing.
    
    I was replacing the power steering rack on my P2 Volvo XC70 recently. I really didn’t want to drop the subframe because that sounded like a lot of work. Eventually I realized dropping the subframe was the easier way to get the power steering rack out and, in the end, it was way easier to just drop the subframe. It was like 10 more bolts and wasn’t that hard to put back. In this analogy, Immich is dropping the subframe, just do it.
    
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- stickyprimer@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I don’t understand why the OS and file system don’t constitute, themselves, a database. Iver the years I have spent a lot of time organizing my photo names, folders, and labels. I want a display service that will take advantage of that, not change it, and update immediately to any changes I make to it.
  
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  - colourlessidea@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    They do; just not optimized for that task
    
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DonutsRMeh@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I’ve been using Immich for a couple of years now, and I really like. Nextcloud is good, too.

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ClydapusGotwald@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Immich and use Immichframe to cast it to a raspberry pi with a screen. That’s what I do and it’s awesome.

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avidamoeba@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Another vote for Immich. Running it with docker compose is trivial. Been using it for 2 years now and it’s been glorious. Running it without docker would take more setup, not sure how complex.

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K3can@lemmy.radio ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
TinyWebGallery?

www.tinywebgallery.com/en/demo2.php

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- hexagonwin@lemmy.today ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  this might actually work. thanks!
  
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curbstickle@anarchist.nexus ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
PiGallery/PiGallery2 , Photoview, HomeGallery, lychee, or thumbsup might be up your alley.

Personally I use Immich and ImmichFrame.

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Nikki@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
immich has been super simple and easy for me, haven’t had to touch it since setting it up

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westingham@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I recommend Ente, they have a self-hosted option. ente.com

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- potustheplant@feddit.nl ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Any reason to pick this over Immich?
  
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  - westingham@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I’ve never used Immich so I can’t speak for or against it. When I started down the selfhosting road, I found Ente first, that’s all.
    
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  - notfromhere@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Looks like Ente supports end to end encryption and Immich doesn’t.
    
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g_damian@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
you could create union mount with rclone to have one folder with all your pics, you can even filter them, e.g. folder with files not older than 1 year

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- hexagonwin@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  thanks! will look into it
  
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crypt0cler1c@infosec.pub ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
You can’t use immich, but you’re thinking of rolling your own solution!?! What?

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yodeljunkmanenvy@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I have a use case where I use Next Explorer to share some directories with photos in them for others to see online. Clean, simple UI and no database, it just indexes your directories. PWA works well on phones.

It does run on docker though (like many, many foss apps). 🤷

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mlg@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

I don’t want to run a separate database or anything complex, so things like Immich or Photoprism are not an option.

Why not just use podman and let it handle itself? Unless you’re planning on hosting like maybe several million photos, I doubt you would ever need to manually set up a DB.

Just download the compose file, add your photo directory paths to it, and let it start and never think about it again until you feel like updating for some new feature months later.

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- hexagonwin@lemmy.today ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  because i don’t want to use podman/docker? if you read the OP and the rest of the thread you wouldn’t have posted this comment…
  
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  - confusedpuppy@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I don’t think you are in the wrong here. You clearly stated your wants and so many replies here have simply ignored what you have said. The response to your post has been strange
    
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  - mlg@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I read the OP which is why I asked the question, not the entire thread just to figure out that you don’t want to use containers.
    
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derin@lemmy.beru.co ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I refuse to use Docker to install applications, so Immich was also a no-go for me. I settled on using Photofield, it’s been pretty great: github.com/SmilyOrg/photofield

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- NewOldGuard@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Why would that write off immich? Docker compose is a recommended installation path for it
  
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  - derin@lemmy.beru.co ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    All of its install steps other than docker compose are still containers, or relate to hosting services, or specific managed platforms.
    
    I’m a simple admin who likes to compile, copy to /usr/bin, prep my system user, populate a directory in /etc with all necessary configs, and write my own .service files.
    
    If you like running single binaries in their own Docker instances, more power to you, but it rubs me the wrong way when people try to force that on me.
    
    NB: I’m not above reading a Dockerfile and executing the steps manually, case in point: that’s how I build lemmy_server for my current instance… but the Immich steps are waay too involved, with too much of the software expecting some less than sane defaults for me. I went through it once, left a bad taste in my mouth, so I stopped using Immich.
    
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- Cyber@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  If you’re using Arch, Immich is in the AUR, that’s how I’m running it bare metal.
  
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  - derin@lemmy.beru.co ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I run Debian on my VPSes. But, also, I’ve been through the path of doing what the PKGBUILD does, which is read the Dockerfike and manually execute the steps: I think it’s pretty problematic to have to do that every update cycle. Got Immich set up, looked at what I’d have to do every time I want to run an update, and "nope"d out.
    
    With server side software like this, which will usually be running behind a reverse proxy and will connect to a postgres dB (or other services like Redis), I kind of don’t want to fight the software/make guesses to create these connections. I also take umbrage with the nginx proxying “example” configurations - just tell me what needs to be proxied to where and let me handle the rest; it’s a server, you don’t know my setup. Case in point, I don’t use nginx.
    
    I like photofield because it’s a single binary (thanks, Go) listening on a port. I proxy what I need to it, and let it run.
    
    Final note: I’m not knocking Immich, or the people who run it. I just think it’s lazy to distribute software with Docker because it encourages devs to get to write what I consider to be poorly designed software (E.g. Software with hard coded paths as strings, because everything is expected to be in the same place on every system - basically very rigid defaults). As a guy who knows his systems well, it annoys me I can’t manage them my way and need to run a nebulous docker container set up by some web developer. (some shade thrown there, my bad)
    
    You don’t have to agree with me, I’m Don Quixote and this is one of my windmills.
    
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Nibodhika@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
PiGallery is what you’re asking for, but you should consider Immich, it’s very simple to setup and you’ll get tons of features more that are extremely useful. I get you want something simple, but I don’t feel Immich is hard to setup or maintain, and it’s the difference between a simple photo gallery and google photos.

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worldclasspun@programming.dev ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Here to suggest piwigo. Use it with docker, zero hassle.

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FridaVanMercury@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I’ve been using PiGallery2 for this github.com/bpatrik/pigallery2

But I do deploy via docker.

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linuxguy@piefed.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
It looks like every reply in this is a near miss so I’ll add another one to the pile: I’ve been working on a hosted immich platform for people who want privacy from big tech and don’t want to / can’t self host it at https://photos.minpin.me

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Decronym@lemmy.decronym.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:

Fewer Letters More Letters

Plex Brand of media server package

ZFS Solaris/Linux filesystem focusing on data integrity

nginx Popular HTTP server

[Thread #110 for this comm, first seen 22nd Sep 2026, 20:50] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

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Dubois_arache@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
You can create a server through AI in bash language for those folders. Or try Sigal or Piwigo.

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herseycokguzelolacak@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I just use a SFTP mount with Thunar.

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Xaphanos@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I have no experience with it, but my questions along a similar vein point to DigiKam.

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- hexagonwin@lemmy.today ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  i have used DigiKam in the past, it’s more of an alternative to XnView not a selfhosted gallery… it doesn’t even support mobile phones or web
  
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Fewer Letters	More Letters
Plex	Brand of media server package
ZFS	Solaris/Linux filesystem focusing on data integrity
nginx	Popular HTTP server