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!
Immich works really well. Don’t fear the database. Docker makes it all super easy too.
Alternatively, Plex manages photos ok-ish.
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.
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.
forgot to mention in OP but I run freebsd on my server and it’s possible to run docker(podman) with linux emulation if it’s very necessary, but i prefer not to use it
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.
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.
Immich isn’t complex, and I don’t think it requires a separate database.
Edit: just checked and technically it does, but if you use the docker compose then it deploys it automatically and you don’t have to think about it at all.
Edit2: if you really want something dead simple, yeah you could trivially write a tiny script to list and thumbnail images. I’m sure there are apache plugins for exactly this.
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.
It does nothing but serve photo. Background tasks are minimal and many of them only run once on new photos.