If you have ever wanted out of Google Photos but hated handing your family pictures to another company, Immich is one of the best-known self-hosted answers. Immich can back up the photos and videos from your phone to a server you control instead of Google's. Same idea as Google Photos, except you run the server. This week it got a major update.
Immich 3.0 is the app's first new major version since 2.0 landed last year, and it adds a few things people expect from the paid apps.
What's new
Editing that leaves the original alone finally comes to the phone. The old mobile editor made a whole new copy of the picture instead of editing it in place. Now you get the same editor the website already had, so you can crop, rotate, and adjust without ever changing the original file, and undo any of it whenever you want. Start on your phone, finish on your laptop.
Another new tool called Workflows handles the busywork. You set a rule once and it runs on its own. A new photo lands, Immich checks it against a rule you set, then archives it or drops it in an album. You build the rule by dragging blocks around. No code needed.
Workflows is an early preview, but it turns a plain backup into something that tidies your library while you sleep. The phone app can also highlight text inside a photo now, so you can select and copy it straight from the image.
The catch
This is still self-hosted, so you run it yourself on your own server. People on very old versions have one migration step first, and some outside tools that plug into Immich may need updates. For most people, you point the version setting at v3 and run the usual update command.
If you already run Immich, 3.0 is a clear upgrade. And if you have been eyeing a way off Google Photos, this update makes the jump easier.
