How to Set Up Immich on Docker — Complete Guide
Immich is the best self-hosted Google Photos alternative available right now. If you’ve read our comparison of self-hosted photo tools and decided Immich is the one (smart choice), this guide walks you through the entire setup — from zero to a fully working photo server with mobile app sync. I’ve set this up on dozens of machines at this point. Here’s exactly what works. What You’ll Need Hardware Requirements CPU: Any modern x86_64 processor. Intel 10th gen or newer is ideal because of Quick Sync (hardware video transcoding). ARM64 works too — Immich runs fine on Raspberry Pi 4/5. RAM: 4GB absolute minimum. 8GB recommended. The machine learning container alone wants 2-3GB when processing. Storage: SSD for the database and application (even 50GB is plenty). Separate HDD/NAS storage for your actual photo library. GPU (optional): NVIDIA GPU dramatically speeds up face recognition and object detection. Not required, but nice to have. Software Requirements Linux server (Ubuntu 22.04/24.04, Debian 12, or any distro with Docker support) Docker and Docker Compose v2 A domain name (optional, but recommended for remote access) Quick Docker Install If you don’t have Docker yet: ...