Move Google Photos to Immich, without a terminal

Google Photos is convenient. It is also the place where ten years of your life sit, scanned by a company whose storage prices rise and whose products like to disappear. Immich does the same job — automatic phone backup, search by faces and places, albums, memories, sharing — except the library belongs to you. Here is how to move.

1. Export your library from Google

Open Google Takeout, select only “Google Photos” and have the export created as ZIP files of 10 GB each. Depending on the size Google takes hours to days and emails you download links. Download every part and unpack them into one folder — you get a subfolder per album with images and JSON files holding date, location and description.

Note the total size. It decides how much storage your Immich instance needs — plus room for the next few years.

2. Start Immich on Podless

Sign in, open Immich in the catalogue and click start. The recommended size — 2 CPU, 8 GB of memory — is there for the face and content recognition that runs inside the pod. For storage, pick the tier above your Takeout size: 150 GB for a typical family library, 500 GB if there is a lot of video. You can grow it later at any time without losing anything.

A few seconds later your instance is reachable on a podless.app address. The first visit creates your admin account.

3. Upload the library

For a Takeout export the community tool immich-go is the best route: it reads Google’s JSON files, sets the correct capture date and location and recreates the albums. You need an API key from the Immich account settings and the address of your instance — both are described in the immich-go guide. The upload runs from your computer; for large libraries let it run overnight.

It also works without a terminal: the Immich web interface accepts folders by drag and drop. You lose the albums from the export, though, and pictures without EXIF data end up on the upload date.

4. Set up phone backup

Install the Immich app for iOS or Android, enter your instance address and sign in. Under “Backup” choose the albums that should upload automatically — the camera roll is usually enough — and enable background backup. From now on every new photo lands on your instance without you thinking about it.

5. Tidy up and share

• Check the timeline for correct dates. Immich reads EXIF data; what Google put into JSON was carried over by immich-go.
• Let face recognition finish (it runs in the background) and name the people it found.
• Share albums by link or with additional accounts on your instance — partner, kids, parents each get their own.
• If the instance should run on your own domain: enter it under “Domain” in the app’s settings, Podless handles the certificate.

6. What about the Google account?

Keep the Google account running in parallel for a month and spot-check. Once everything is there, switch off backup in the Google Photos app, downgrade the storage plan and delete the library — or leave it if that makes you calmer. What matters is that nothing flows there any more.

What does Immich cost per month?

Immich at the recommended size with 150 GB of storage lands at around €12 a month running around the clock. That is more than Google’s 2 TB plan — in return the library is yours, nobody scans it for ads, and the price is tied to resources instead of a corporation’s mood. The pricing calculator shows the exact figure.