[Feature] Delete external photos

[ma3252788]

The feature

I have read this link: https://immich.app/docs/features/libraries

Although the reasons why external photos cannot be deleted are mentioned above, I think at least the user should be given a choice, and a button can be made, which can be turned off by default, so that the user can decide whether to delete external photos or not.

I hope to use immich for local photo management, but when I browse through photos, I find that I can't delete external pictures that I don't like. Looking forward to your reply.

Platform

• Server
• Web
• Mobile

[steve5355]

my use case and suggestions for this:

my photos are locked away on a folder on my NAS. So immich helps me discover photos that i forgot about... As i scroll, i want to make some "Fixes" or "Deletes" .... i totally understand not wanting to touch or accidently delete precious photos. But at the same time, it would be super useful to allow edits and deletes to "Write back" to the source files so i can update them at the source.

I have 3 proposed implementation ideas for this:

1. mark them as "is deleted" and then use a 3rd party script or command line to actually loop through those and perform the actual delete. This way, immich is not directly deleting. This would act like an "empty trash bin"

2. move the deleted into /trashbin folder for the user to manually review and actually delete. (retain the file name and folder structure for easy match up to where they were imported from.

3. perform the edit or delete on the source file on the NAS, and allow a "refresh" or some kind of awareness in immich that a file was edited / updated / deleted and have the database in immich refresh, reflecting the changes or removals.

These will put the responsibility on the user to delete and not immich, but then keep the edits and removals "in snyc" which is really important.

[aisbergde]

Because external libraries are mounted read only, it would be fine to

• allow deleting external assets
• mark them only in the database table assets as deleted
• "move" them virtually into the trash folder
• undelete would just mean, to remove the isDeleted flag from the asset

this implementation should be safe, it will not touch anything on the assets.

[jakub-antos]

I uploaded 163228 photos and 5657 videos. It took 2 days (without transcoding) the photos I have on an external drive, now I find out that I can't delete unnecessary photos from immich web😒.
The function mentioned here is even basic, I hope it will appear soon in the project, I don't want to leave it, it's a really good application 👍 Thank you.

[filipc]

I'm going through the same thing

[ns-mglaske]

Add my vote for allowing deletion of external assets (I think this should be a choice for the end user personally). This is actually a huge problem for me, as my photos directory has multiple phone backup directories in it, and I've not had time to go through them and clean it up. 😒

Additionally, it would be super helpful if it would recognize duplicate photos in external libraries, and:

1. Show all duplicate photos (separate tab), and give the option to bulk delete them, possibly preferring specific paths to keep.
2. Not actually show the duplicate photos (store in db with the hash value, along with the filePaths that are duplicates)

It could, as suggested above, also just move the files to the Trash folder.

Thank you!

[nicoKoehler]

New to Immich, and I urgently need this feature too. Whats the point of a picture management software if it cannot perform one of the most basic functions. I assume it's a very common occurrence for self-hosters to have large libraries on a NAS.
I do find @aisbergde 's solution a rather elegant one, that could prevent accidental deletion, while still allowing for an efficient way to deal with the files.

An alternative could be a change to the file name. I.e. if "delete asset" is triggered for external assets, the file name (actual and in DB to avoid double scan) is changed, e.g. with the suffix "DELETE". This would then allow for anyone to go onto the NAS, filter for the suffix, and manually delete them. Of course it's not ideal either, but better than nothing.

EDIT: my current work around is to mark all pictures I want to delete, then download them via Immich, and use them as a reference database. Super inelegant, especially if it has to traverse multi level folder structures and thousands of pictures. But it seems to work until an official solution is available.

[nicoKoehler]

I do like the sql approach, but as @aisbergde states it's more of an involved way to achieve this.
Since the psql container is separate and per default has the port exposed, I wonder if there is a way to program a small GUI utility that makes use of this. As @wildleaf suggested, there could be a "delete" album, and the utility could be a separate web app that allows the user to delete albums via a GUI.

I assume going the PR way will not be too fruitful. The Immich team has been very clear about not messing with external file systems, and I would argue there is a valid reason for it. Since its still a heavily evolving tool, one bad bug could delete a lifetime of images irrecoverably.

[wildleaf]

It can all be done via a simple script. I'm using K8s in TrueNAS. You can just execute the cmd inside the container using psql.

cmd='PAGER=cat psql -U immich -d immich -t -A -c "select \"originalPath\" from assets where \"isExternal\"=true and \"isArchived\"=true;"'
sudo k3s kubectl exec -it -n ${namespace} ${db_pod} -c immich -- bash -c "$cmd" | tr -d '\r' > ${output_file}

[nicoKoehler]

yea that makes sense. Was just thinking about away to make it easier for the end user that does not want to use scripts. Seems to be a reoccuring question, so something intuitive with a GUI might help out a lot of people.

[wildleaf]

@nicoKoehler Yeah I don't think this can be done via GUI without immich enabling it. You need to delete the assets physically which there is no way to do from UI.

[nicoKoehler]

@wildleaf Oh I am thinking about a completely separate web app, not connected to immich per se. Separate docker container running a python webserver, that queries the immich-psql and provides a GUI for interacting with the DB and the external file system

[aisbergde]

I added adminer to my docker-compose. This is simple but sufficient Web-based GUI for database administration.

  adminer:
    container_name: immich_adminer
    image: adminer
    ports:
      - 8080:8080
    environment:
      ADMINER_DEFAULT_SERVER: immich_postgres
    depends_on:
      - database

and here the tables albums, albums_assets_assets and assets could be combined, to update asset
first check

select
  t1.*
from
  assets t1
inner join
  albums_assets_assets t2
  on t1.id = t2."assetsId"
inner join
  albums t3
  on t2."albumsId" = t3.id
where
  t3."albumName" = 'test delete'
  and t1."deletedAt" IS NULL
;

then update

update
  assets t1
set "deletedAt" = NOW()
from
albums_assets_assets t2
inner join albums t3
  on t2."albumsId" = t3.id
where
  t3."albumName" = 'test delete'
  and t1."deletedAt" IS NULL
  and t1.id = t2."assetsId"
;

[nicoKoehler]

@aisbergde thats a pretty cool idea!

[aisbergde]

there is also a query history, but I did not check, if it will keep old queries (normally I am working in MS SQL Server, using SQL Server Management Studio or Azure Data Studio):

[wildleaf]

I think pgadmin4 would be a more modern choice.

[aisbergde]

I also used and use pgAdmin4. And it is better and has more features. But it's a bit more complicated to setup and to connect. The benefit of the Webbased GUI is: it is very easy to setup (just add a container) and it can be used in the browser. For simple queries it's fine.

[rokiden]

I propose to add "Read Only" property for External library.
Details:

• In database it can be stored as column "libraries.isReadOnly".
• here asset must inherit library's value

  immich/server/src/domain/library/library.service.ts

  Line 516 in 5b314ff

  isReadOnly: true,

• here check only isReadOnly

  immich/server/src/domain/asset/asset.service.ts

  Line 445 in 5b314ff

  if (!fromExternal && (!asset.library || asset.library.type === LibraryType.EXTERNAL)) {

• here filter by isReadOnly instead isExternal

  immich/server/src/infra/repositories/asset.repository.ts

  Line 286 in 5b314ff

  await this.repository.softDelete({ id: In(ids), isExternal: false });

• at frontend it can be added as toggle to "Select library owner" dialog

[rokiden]

It's proof-of-concept/for-personal-use fork. It's updated as long as I'm interested. It requires attention of more skillful developer.

[Pastitas]

Do you plan on making your fork into a PR?

[BLACK4585]

Will you update the fork?

[rokiden]

Will you update the fork?

Yes, give me a few days.

[rokiden]

Do you plan on making your fork into a PR?

I will try.

[filipc]

I would suggest to cover it with try/catch clause in the code.

The fact that external library is writeable or not I would leave to the decision of docker-compose manifest. If volume will be defined with :ro it will be readonly and attempt to remove file will fail, otherwise it should try to delete the file.
From the GUI level it can be catched with a nice looking message that deletion has failed or succeeded.

Simple way we could achieve very configurable solution:

• want to keep external libraries unmodifiable, mount the volume with :ro suffix, on delete button press user will get a message that it was an unsuccessful operation
• want to allow users to delete files, mount the volume without :ro, then on button press app will call file deletion command on the file system. The output could be successful, or fail in case of a messed files permissions.

[BLACK4585]

Hey, I'm currently having the same problem. I think it would be nice if the user had the option to explicitly enable deleting the photos from the external folder, not just in the Immich system. 👍

[pawpedersen]

I would love this feature as well.

A delete from "library only" button and a "Delete from Disk and library" would be nice.

[ThreeAurora]

Yes, I need this feature very much, otherwise I wouldn't be able to implement all my ideas!

[Hector1990]

Any updates for this request?

[rokiden]

#8992

[ThreeAurora]

Looks great, and I can't wait for this update

[ThreeAurora]

I looked at #8992 again today and found that you are still discussing it. How long will this feature appear? I can't wait to take a look

[benmccann]

To implement this highly requested feature, external assets are no longer readonly as of #9235

If you would like to keep your assets as readonly, you may mount your volume as readonly in Docker. There is no special handling of readonly volumes in the app. That means you would still see things like delete buttons but the app would fail when it tries to delete those assets since the disk would not be writable

[benmccann]

Released in 1.104.0 (#9434)