January 31, 2026
Click wars: pixels vs paper
My Ridiculously Robust Photo Management System (Immich Edition)
Immich fans cheer, folder purists roll eyes, and one guy just prints photos
TLDR: A longtime tinkerer shows how to save photo edits inside the files and view them in Immich, with backups and no database lock‑in. Commenters split into three camps: keep it simple with folders, go all‑in on Immich, or skip the tech and print everything—sparking a funny, fiery debate about durability and ease.
A veteran coder shows off a “don’t-break-in-20-years” photo setup: all your edits—titles, dates, favorites—are written inside the picture file itself (that hidden info is called EXIF), backed up to a home server and Dropbox, and viewed in Immich using read‑only folders. No databases, no lock‑in, and he even released a simpler add‑on, immich-exif, plus his longtime organizer Elodie. Sounds zen—until the comments lit up.
On one side, the Minimalists: “Files on disk, nothing fancy.” They’re done switching apps every few years and call Immich “another thing to maintain.” Another reader’s confused about whether Elodie copies photos and asks if you’re meant to delete originals—proof this DIY path can feel murky for newcomers.
Enter the Immich believers: one person ditched Apple’s iCloud and says Immich was the easiest self‑hosted win ever, with “everything just works” vibes and magic search that finds stuff by context and text. Meanwhile, the Alternatives Squad pushes Nextcloud + Memories, promising the same keep‑your-files approach: “grab the disk and you’re ready.”
And then a hero of chaos arrives with the ultimate hot take: a family photo printer, a tall stack of paper, and zero stress. “Done,” they say. The thread basically turns into a three‑way brawl—go ultra‑durable, go Immich, or go analog—proving that when it comes to memories, everybody’s got a hill to die on.
Key Points
- •The workflow stores all photo metadata exclusively in EXIF, avoiding external databases.
- •Immich’s external libraries enable read-only mounting of existing folders, restoring a Google Photos-like viewer experience.
- •Edits in Immich (albums, descriptions, location, date/time, favorites) are written back into EXIF and backed up to Synology NAS and Dropbox.
- •Elodie is used as the canonical organizer, materializing the library on disk using EXIF; it’s an open-source tool with notable adoption.
- •A simplified plugin, immich-exif, is released on GitHub to fit varied workflows and implement EXIF-based metadata updates from Immich.