# FAQ

## User

### How can I reset the admin password?

The admin password can be reset by running the [reset-admin-password](/docs/administration/server-commands.md) command on the immich-server.

### How can I see a list of all users in Immich?

You can see the list of all users by running [list-users](/docs/administration/server-commands.md) Command on the Immich-server.

---

## Mobile App

### What is the difference between the cloud icons on the mobile app?

| Icon                               | Description                                                                                                                                      |
| ---------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| ![cloud](/img/cloud.svg)           | Asset is only available on the server and was uploaded from some other device (like the web client) or was deleted from this device after upload |
| ![cloud-cross](/img/cloud-off.svg) | Asset is only available locally and has not yet been backed up                                                                                   |
| ![cloud-done](/img/cloud-done.svg) | Asset was uploaded from this device and is now backed up to the server; the original file is still on the device                                 |

### I cannot log into the application after an update. What can I do?

Verify that the mobile app and server are both running the same version (major and minor).

:::note
App store updates sometimes take longer because the stores (Google Play Store and Apple App Store)
need to approve the update first, and it can take some time.
:::

If you still cannot log in to the app, try the following:

- Check the mobile logs
- Make sure login credentials are correct by logging in on the web app

### Why does foreground backup stop when I navigate away from the app? Shouldn't it transfer the job to background backup?

Foreground backup and background backup are two separate mechanisms. They don't communicate or interact with each other.

Foreground backup is controlled by the user's action, while background backup is controlled by your device's operating system. When the app is put in the background, the invocation of background tasks is delegated to the device's operating system scheduler. It decides when the background task can run and how long it can run.

The behaviors differ based on your device manufacturer and operating system, but most are related to battery-saving policies.

### Why is background backup on iOS not working?

On iOS (iPhone and iPad), the operating system determines if a particular app can invoke background tasks based on multiple factors, most of which the Immich app has no control over. To increase the likelihood that the background backup task is run, follow the steps below:

- Enable Background App Refresh for Immich in the iOS settings at `Settings > General > Background App Refresh`.
- Disable Background App Refresh for apps that don't need background tasks to run. This will reduce the competition for background task invocation for Immich.
- Use the Immich app more often.

---

## Assets

### Does Immich change the file?

No, Immich does not touch the original file under any circumstances,  
all edited metadata are saved in the companion sidecar file and the database.

### Can I add my existing photo library?

Yes, with an [External Library](/docs/features/libraries.md).

### What happens to existing files after I choose a new [Storage Template](/docs/administration/storage-template.mdx)?

Template changes will only apply to _new_ assets. To retroactively apply the template to previously uploaded assets, run the Storage Migration Job, available on the [Jobs](/docs/administration/jobs.md) page.

### Why are only photos and not videos being uploaded to Immich?

This often happens when using a reverse proxy (such as Nginx or Cloudflare tunnel) in front of Immich. Make sure to set your reverse proxy to allow large `POST` requests. In `nginx`, set `client_max_body_size 50000M;` or similar. Also, check the disk space of your reverse proxy. In some cases, proxies cache requests to disk before passing them on, and if disk space runs out, the request fails.

### Why are some photos stored in the file system with the wrong date?

There are a few different scenarios that can lead to this situation. The solution is to rerun the storage migration job. The job is only automatically run once per asset after upload. If metadata extraction originally failed, the jobs were cleared/canceled, etc., the job may not have run automatically the first time.

### How can I hide photos from the timeline?

You can _archive_ them.

### How can I backup data from Immich?

See [Backup and Restore](/docs/administration/backup-and-restore.md).

### Does Immich support reading existing face tag metadata?

No, it currently does not. There is an [open feature request on GitHub](https://github.com/immich-app/immich/discussions/4348).

### Does Immich support the filtering of NSFW images?

No, it currently does not. There is an [open feature request on Github](https://github.com/immich-app/immich/discussions/2451).

### Why are there so many thumbnail generation jobs?

There are three thumbnail jobs for each asset:

- Blurred (thumbhash)
- Preview (Webp)
- Thumbnail (Jpeg)

Also, there are additional jobs for person (face) thumbnails.

### Why do files from WhatsApp not appear with the correct date?

Files sent on WhatsApp are saved without metadata on the file. Therefore, Immich has no way of knowing the original date of the file when files are uploaded from WhatsApp, not the order of arrival on the device. [See #3527](https://github.com/immich-app/immich/issues/3527).

### What happens if an asset exists in more than one account?

There are no requirements for assets to be unique across users. If multiple users upload the same image, it is processed as if it were a distinct asset, and jobs run and thumbnails are generated accordingly.

### Why do HDR videos appear pale in Immich player but look normal after download?

Immich uses a player with known HDR color display issues. We are experimenting with a different player that provides better color profiles for HDR content for future improvements.

### Why does Immich transcode my videos to a lower quality?

Immich always keeps your original files. Alongside that, it generates a transcoded version for compatibility and performance reasons.

### How can I delete transcoded videos without deleting the original?

The transcoded version of an asset can be deleted by setting a transcode policy that makes it unnecessary and then running a transcoding job for that asset. This can be done on a per-asset basis by starting a transcoding job for a single asset with the _Refresh encoded videos_ button in the asset viewer options or for all assets by running transcoding jobs for all assets from the administration page.

To update the transcode policy, navigate to Administration > Video Transcoding Settings > Transcoding Policy and select a policy from the drop-down. This policy will determine whether an existing transcode will be deleted or overwritten in the transcoding job. If a video should be transcoded according to this policy, an existing transcode is overwritten. If not, then it is deleted.

:::note
For example, say you have existing transcodes with the policy "Videos higher than normal resolution or not in the desired format" and switch to a narrower policy: "Videos not in the desired format." If an asset was only transcoded due to its resolution, running a transcoding job for it will delete the existing transcode. This is because resolution is no longer part of the transcode policy and the transcode is unnecessary. Likewise, if you set the policy to "Don't transcode any videos" and run transcoding jobs for all assets, this will delete all existing transcodes as they are unnecessary.
:::

### Is it possible to compress images during backup?

No. Our design principle is that the original assets should always be untouched.

### How can I move all data (photos, persons, albums, libraries) from one user to another?

This is not officially supported but can be accomplished with some database updates. You can do this on the command line (in the PostgreSQL container using the `psql` command), or you can add, for example, an [Adminer](https://www.adminer.org/) container to the `docker-compose.yml` file so that you can use a web interface.

<details>
<summary>Steps</summary>

1. **MAKE A BACKUP** - See [backup and restore](/docs/administration/backup-and-restore.md).

2. Find the ID of both the 'source' and the 'destination' user (it's the id column in the `users` table)

3. Four tables need to be updated:

```sql
BEGIN;
-- reassign albums
UPDATE albums SET "ownerId" = '<destinationId>' WHERE "ownerId" = '<sourceId>';

-- reassign people
UPDATE person SET "ownerId" = '<destinationId>' WHERE "ownerId" = '<sourceId>';

-- reassign assets
UPDATE assets SET "ownerId" = '<destinationId>' WHERE "ownerId" = '<sourceId>'
 AND CHECKSUM NOT IN (SELECT CHECKSUM FROM assets WHERE "ownerId" = '<destinationId>');

-- reassign external libraries
UPDATE libraries SET "ownerId" = '<destinationId>' WHERE "ownerId" = '<sourceId>';
COMMIT;
```

4. There might be left-over assets in the 'source' user's library if they are skipped by the last query because of duplicate checksums. These are probably duplicates anyway, and can probably be removed.

</details>

---

## Albums

### Can I keep my existing album structure while importing assets into Immich?

Yes, by using the [Immich CLI](/docs/features/command-line-interface) along with the `--album` flag.

### Is there a way to reorder photos within an album?

No, not yet. For updates on this planned feature, follow the [GitHub discussion](https://github.com/immich-app/immich/discussions/1689).

---

## External Library

### Can I add an external library while keeping the existing album structure?

We haven't implemented an official mechanism for creating albums from external libraries, but there are some [workarounds from the community](https://github.com/immich-app/immich/discussions/4279) to help you achieve that.

### What happens to duplicates in external libraries?

Duplicate checking only exists for upload libraries, using the file hash. Furthermore, duplicate checking is not global, but _per library_. Therefore, a situation where the same file appears twice in the timeline is possible, especially for external libraries.

---

## Machine Learning

### How does smart search work?

Immich uses CLIP models. For more information about CLIP and its capabilities, read about it [here](https://openai.com/research/clip).

### How does facial recognition work?

For face detection and recognition, Immich uses [InsightFace models](https://github.com/deepinsight/insightface/tree/master/model_zoo).

### How can I disable machine learning?

:::info
Disabling machine learning will result in a poor experience for searching and the 'Explore' page, as these are reliant on it to work as intended.
:::

Machine learning can be disabled under Administration > Settings > Machine Learning Settings, either entirely or by model type. For instance, you can choose to disable smart search with CLIP, but keep facial recognition enabled. This means that the machine learning service will only process the enabled jobs.

However, disabling all jobs will not disable the machine learning service itself. To prevent it from starting up at all in this case, you can comment out the `immich-machine-learning` section of the docker-compose.yml.

### I'm getting errors about models being corrupt or failing to download. What do I do?

You can delete the model cache volume, where models are downloaded. This will give the service a clean environment to download the model again. If models are failing to download entirely, you can manually download them from [Huggingface][huggingface] and place them in the cache folder.

### Can I use a custom CLIP model?

No, this is not supported. Only models listed in the [Huggingface][huggingface] page are compatible. Feel free to make a feature request if there's a model not listed here that you think should be added.

### I want to be able to search in other languages besides English. How can I do that?

You can change to a multilingual model listed [here](https://huggingface.co/collections/immich-app/multilingual-clip-654eb08c2382f591eeb8c2a7) by going to Administration > Machine Learning Settings > Smart Search and replacing the name of the model. Be sure to re-run Smart Search on all assets after this change. You can then search in over 100 languages.

:::note
Feel free to make a feature request if there's a model you want to use that isn't in [Immich Huggingface list][huggingface].
:::

### Does Immich support Facial Recognition for videos?

Immich's machine learning feature operates on the generated thumbnail. If a face is visible in the video's thumbnail it will be picked up by facial recognition.
Scanning the entire video for faces may be implemented in the future.

### Does Immich have animal recognition?

No.
:::tip
You can use [Smart Search](/docs/features/smart-search.md) for this to some extent. For example, if you have a Golden Retriever and a Chihuahua, type these words in the smart search and watch the results.
:::

### I'm getting a lot of "faces" that aren't faces, what can I do?

You can increase the MIN DETECTION SCORE to 0.8 to help prevent bad thumbnails. Setting the score too high (above 0.9) might filter out too many real faces depending on the library used. If you just want to hide specific faces, you can adjust the 'MIN FACES DETECTED' setting in the administration panel  
to increase the bar for what the algorithm considers a "core face" for that person, reducing the chance of bad thumbnails being chosen.

### The immich_model-cache volume takes up a lot of space, what could be the problem?

If you installed several models and chose not to use some of them, it might be worth deleting the old models that are in immich_model-cache. To do this you can mount the model cache and remove the undesired models.

<details>
<summary>Steps</summary>

```bash
docker run -it --rm -v immich_model-cache:/mnt-models alpine sh
cd /mnt-models
ls clip/ facial-recognition/
# rm -r clip/ABC facial-recognition/DEF # delete unused models
```

</details>

---

## Performance

### Why is Immich slow on low-memory systems like the Raspberry Pi?

Immich optionally uses machine learning for several features. However, it can be too heavy to run on a Raspberry Pi. You can [mitigate](/docs/FAQ#can-i-lower-cpu-and-ram-usage) this or host Immich's machine-learning container on a [more powerful system](/docs/guides/remote-machine-learning), or [disable](/docs/FAQ#how-can-i-disable-machine-learning) machine learning entirely.

### Can I lower CPU and RAM usage?

The initial backup is the most intensive due to the number of jobs running. The most CPU-intensive ones are transcoding and machine learning jobs (Smart Search, Face Detection), and to a lesser extent thumbnail generation. Here are some ways to lower their CPU usage:

- Lower the job concurrency for these jobs to 1.
- Under Settings > Transcoding Settings > Threads, set the number of threads to a low number like 1 or 2.
- Under Settings > Machine Learning Settings > Facial Recognition > Model Name, you can change the facial recognition model to `buffalo_s` instead of `buffalo_l`. The former is a smaller and faster model, albeit not as good.
- For facial recognition on new images to work properly, You must re-run the Face Detection job for all images after this.
- If these changes are not enough, see [below](/docs/FAQ#how-can-i-disable-machine-learning) for instructions on how to disable machine learning.

### Can I limit the amount of CPU and RAM usage?

By default, a container has no resource constraints and can use as much of a given resource as the host's kernel scheduler allows. To limit this, you can add the following to the `docker-compose.yml` block of any containers that you want to have limited resources.

<details>
<summary>docker-compose.yml</summary>

```yaml
deploy:
  resources:
    limits:
      # Number of CPU threads
      cpus: '1.00'
      # Gigabytes of memory
      memory: '1G'
```

</details>
For more details, you can look at the [original docker docs](https://docs.docker.com/config/containers/resource_constraints/) or use this [guide](https://www.baeldung.com/ops/docker-memory-limit).

### How can I boost machine learning speed?

:::note
This advice improves throughput, not latency. This is to say that it will make Smart Search jobs process more quickly, but it won't make searching faster.
:::

You can increase throughput by increasing the job concurrency for machine learning jobs (Smart Search, Face Detection). With higher concurrency, the host will work on more assets in parallel. You can do this by navigating to Administration > Settings > Job Settings and increasing concurrency as needed.

:::danger
On a normal machine, 2 or 3 concurrent jobs can probably max the CPU. Beyond this, note that storage speed and latency may quickly become the limiting factor; particularly when using HDDs.

Do not exaggerate with the amount of jobs because you're probably thoroughly overloading the server.

More details can be found [here](https://discord.com/channels/979116623879368755/994044917355663450/1174711719994605708)
:::

### Why is Immich using so much of my CPU?

When a large number of assets are uploaded to Immich, it makes sense that the CPU and RAM will be heavily used for machine learning work and creating image thumbnails.
Once this process is completed, the percentage of CPU usage will drop to around 3-5% usage

### My server shows Server Status Offline | Version Unknown what can I do?

You need to enable Websocket on your reverse proxy.

---

## Docker

### How can I see Immich logs?

Immich components are typically deployed using docker. To see logs for deployed docker containers, you can use the [Docker CLI](https://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/commandline/cli/), specifically the `docker logs` command. For examples, see [Docker Help](/docs/guides/docker-help.md).

### How can I run Immich as a non-root user?

You can change the user in the container by setting the `user` argument in `docker-compose.yml` for each service.
You may need to add mount points or docker volumes for the following internal container paths:

- `immich-machine-learning:/.config`
- `immich-machine-learning:/.cache`
- `redis:/data`

The non-root user/group needs read/write access to the volume mounts, including `UPLOAD_LOCATION`.

For a further hardened system, you can add the following block to every container except for `immich_postgres`.

<details>
<summary>docker-compose.yml</summary>

```yaml
security_opt:
  # Prevent escalation of privileges after the container is started
  - no-new-privileges:true
cap_drop:
  # Prevent access to raw network traffic
  - NET_RAW
```

</details>

### How can I purge data from Immich?

Data for Immich comes in two forms:

1. **Metadata** stored in a Postgres database, stored in the `DB_DATA_LOCATION` folder (previously `pg_data` Docker volume).
2. **Files** (originals, thumbs, profile, etc.), stored in the `UPLOAD_LOCATION` folder, more [info](/docs/administration/backup-and-restore#asset-types-and-storage-locations).

:::warning
This will destroy your database and reset your instance, meaning that you start from scratch.
:::

```bash title="Remove Immich (containers and volumes)"
docker compose down -v
```

After removing the containers and volumes, there are a few directories that need to be deleted to reset Immich to a new installation. Once they are deleted, Immich can be started back up and will be a fresh installation.

- `DB_DATA_LOCATION` contains the database, media info, and settings.
- `UPLOAD_LOCATION` contains all the media uploaded to Immich.

:::note Portainer
If you use portainer, bring down the stack in portainer. Go into the volumes section  
and remove all the volumes related to immich then restart the stack.
:::

### Why does the machine learning service report workers crashing?

:::note
If the error says the worker is exiting, then this is normal. This is a feature intended to reduce RAM consumption when the service isn't being used.
:::

There are a few reasons why this can happen.

If the error mentions SIGKILL or error code 137, it most likely means the service is running out of memory. Consider either increasing the server's RAM or moving the service to a server with more RAM.

If it mentions SIGILL (note the lack of a K) or error code 132, it most likely means your server's CPU is incompatible. This is unlikely to occur on version 1.92.0 or later. Consider upgrading if your version of Immich is below that.

If your version of Immich is below 1.92.0 and the crash occurs after logs about tracing or exporting a model, consider either upgrading or disabling the Tag Objects job.

### Why does Immich log migration errors on startup?

Sometimes Immich logs errors such as "duplicate key value violates unique constraint" or "column (...) of relation (...) already exists". Because of Immich's container structure, this error can be seen when both immich and immich-microservices start at the same time and attempt to migrate or create the database structure. Since the database migration is run sequentially and inside of transactions, this error message does not cause harm to your installation of Immich and can safely be ignored. If needed, you can manually restart Immich by running `docker restart immich immich-microservices`.

[huggingface]: https://huggingface.co/immich-app
