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The most documented path is to export Google Photos with Google Takeout, then import the archive into Immich with the Takeout-aware immich-go workflow. Keep the archive and its JSON sidecars, give Immich enough storage for both the imported library and backups, and treat album and metadata matching as something to verify rather than assume.
This guide covers the migration sequence, what transfers, the limits of external libraries, and a backup plan that can recover both your media files and Immich’s database metadata.
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What you need before starting
A migration is safer when the source export, destination library, and recovery copies are planned together. Immich’s Quick Start tells administrators to set an UPLOAD_LOCATION on a disk with enough free space. For this project, “enough” means space for all of the following at the same time:
- The downloaded Google Takeout archive or archives.
- The extracted media and JSON files while the import is being processed.
- The Immich destination library if you use the normal upload workflow.
- At least one separate filesystem copy for recovery.
Estimate from your own collection rather than from a generic photo count. Videos, edited exports, and duplicate files can make the archive substantially larger than the number of visible items in Google Photos. Do not delete the Takeout files until you have checked the imported counts, dates, locations, descriptions, and important albums.
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Choose where Immich will keep the files
You have two practical destination models:
| Destination | How it works | Important trade-offs |
|---|---|---|
| Immich upload library | Assets are imported into Immich’s managed upload storage. | Requires capacity in UPLOAD_LOCATION and a separate backup of the filesystem. It is the straightforward choice when Immich should own the imported files. |
| Immich external library | Immich indexes an existing folder mounted into the server instead of copying files into the ordinary upload path. | The Immich FAQ says there is no official mechanism for creating albums in an external library. Duplicate checking is limited and performed per library, and a read-only mount cannot save metadata edits. |
For a one-time Google Photos migration, the upload library is usually easier to reason about because the imported assets follow Immich’s normal storage and database model. An external library can avoid another copy only when you already have a well-organized folder and accept its album, duplicate, and write-access limitations.
Step 1: Make a recovery plan
Before exporting anything, decide where the original Takeout archive will live and where the independent backup will be stored. A second disk, a NAS, or another physically separate storage location can serve as the media copy; existing hardware is sufficient if it has the required capacity and is not the same failure point as the Immich server.
Plan to retain two different kinds of backup:
- Filesystem backup: the actual photos and videos, including Immich’s original-content folders.
- Database backup: Immich’s records of file paths, albums, users, and other metadata.
Immich’s backup documentation identifies UPLOAD_LOCATION/library, UPLOAD_LOCATION/upload, and UPLOAD_LOCATION/profile as critical original-content folders. Backing up other generated folders can reduce regeneration work after a restore, but those three are the minimum originals called out in the guidance.
A database dump alone is not a photo backup. Immich explicitly says its built-in database backups contain metadata and do not include photo or video files. Conversely, a filesystem copy without the database can leave you with files but none of the Immich organization and metadata that points to them.
Step 2: Export Google Photos with Takeout
- Open Google Takeout and select Google Photos as the service to export.
- Request the export and download every archive Google provides. The immich-go documentation supports processing one or more Takeout ZIP files or an already extracted folder.
- Keep the ZIP files unchanged as an original source copy. Extract a working copy into storage that has enough room for both the media and the JSON sidecars.
- Do not separate the JSON files from the photos and videos. The Takeout-aware importer scans both and uses the JSON information to match metadata to the corresponding media.
Takeout is the hand-off point between Google Photos and your self-hosted system. The export is not merely a folder of images: the sidecar JSON can contain descriptions, original capture dates, locations, and album associations that would otherwise be difficult to reconstruct.
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Step 3: Prepare Immich
- Install or update your Immich server using the project’s current Quick Start instructions.
- Set
UPLOAD_LOCATIONto the destination filesystem and confirm that the account running Immich can read and write there. - Check free space before importing. You need room for the destination library and should not rely on the same disk as the only backup.
- Complete the initial administrator setup and verify that the web interface can accept a small test upload. A test confirms storage permissions before you process a large archive.
Immich and immich-go evolve independently enough that exact version compatibility and command syntax can change. Use the current Immich Quick Start and the current immich-go upload guide for the release you install; do not assume an older command or flag is still valid.
Step 4: Import the Takeout archive with immich-go
The immich-go project’s Takeout workflow is designed for this specific job. Its documented sequence is to scan media and JSON files, catalog what it finds, match metadata to media, and then upload the resulting assets to Immich.
- Point immich-go at the downloaded ZIP file or at the extracted Takeout directory, according to the current upload guide.
- Let the scan complete so the tool can inventory media and sidecar JSON before uploading. This makes missing or unmatched items visible instead of silently treating the export as an ordinary folder.
- Enable the documented album-synchronization option if you want Takeout album structure recreated in Immich.
- Choose filters for archived, trashed, partner-shared, or unmatched items based on what you want to preserve. These categories are available as documented import controls; decide deliberately whether an item should enter your self-hosted library.
- Use the importer’s duplicate-checking behavior, then review its output for files it could not match.
- Start the upload and keep the original archive until the verification stage is complete.
Unmatched media can still be included, but the immich-go documentation warns that those assets will have less metadata. If preserving descriptions, dates, locations, or album membership matters, do not treat an unmatched report as harmless. Keep the file, inspect why the match failed, and decide whether to import it with reduced metadata or correct the source arrangement and retry.
Why matching can fail
The project documentation specifically discusses difficulties involving edited files, burst photos, and duplicates. A filename that looks obvious to a person may not be enough for an automated match when several versions share similar names or when Google’s export contains both an original and an edited derivative. The importer’s result is therefore a mapping to review, not a guarantee that every edge case will be perfect.
What transfers, and what to verify
immich-go documents importing several kinds of information from Takeout JSON and mapping the original capture date rather than relying only on a file’s modification time.
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| Data | Documented behavior | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| Original capture date | The importer reads the Takeout date information and describes mapping the original capture date. | Open samples from old, recent, and edited periods. Look for dates that have shifted to the export or extraction time. |
| Descriptions | Descriptions in the Takeout JSON can be imported. | Check photos with captions, especially those containing punctuation or non-English characters. |
| GPS coordinates | Location information can be read from the Takeout metadata. | Inspect representative photos on the map or location view and confirm that sensitive locations are what you intend to retain. |
| Albums | Album synchronization is a documented immich-go option. | Compare a few small, large, and shared-origin albums. Album recreation is a capability, not a promise that every unusual album edge case will map exactly. |
| Duplicates | The importer documents duplicate checking. | Review duplicate reports and verify that intentional copies, edits, and burst sequences were not incorrectly collapsed. |
Do a representative audit rather than checking only the newest images. Include photos with descriptions, geotags, edits, bursts, and duplicate-looking filenames. Compare the total number of assets and the number of albums, then sample the oldest and newest capture dates.
Using XMP sidecars after the import
Immich also documents reading selected XMP sidecar fields. A sidecar must share the media filename base: examples include IMG_0001.jpg.xmp and IMG_0001.xmp. Supported reads include description, rating, date and time, GPS coordinates, and tags in the XMP fields Immich recognizes.
Support is field-specific. The documentation says unsupported XMP fields remain in the sidecar but are not searchable in Immich. Do not assume that every proprietary rating, face label, keyword namespace, or editing instruction in an XMP file becomes an Immich search field. If a particular field is important, test one file with that exact field before designing a large-scale workflow around it.
Step 5: Verify the migration before deleting anything
- Compare the number of Takeout media files with the number of assets shown in Immich, allowing for any filters you intentionally selected.
- Open representative photos and videos from different years, devices, and file types.
- Check original capture dates, descriptions, GPS data, ratings, and tags where they matter to you.
- Open several albums, including albums with edited images, bursts, or shared-origin content.
- Review immich-go’s unmatched and duplicate results and make a decision for every important exception.
- Confirm that the files exist in the destination filesystem and that a database backup has been created.
- Copy the original Takeout archive and the verified Immich filesystem to the independent backup location.
Only after these checks should you consider removing the Google Photos collection or deleting the local Takeout working copy. Keeping the original archive gives you a way to re-run the import if you later discover a mapping problem.
Backup Immich after the move
Immich’s database stores file paths and user metadata, and its documentation says the application does not scan the library folder to rebuild that information automatically. Schedule database backups and test that you can read them. At the same time, back up the filesystem media; the database and files are complementary, not interchangeable.
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A practical backup set
- Primary Immich storage: the configured upload location on the server.
- Filesystem copy: at least
UPLOAD_LOCATION/library,UPLOAD_LOCATION/upload, andUPLOAD_LOCATION/profileon separate storage. - Database dumps: recurring exports stored away from the server.
- Original Takeout: the untouched ZIP archive and, if useful, the extracted folder with its JSON files.
After a restore, the filesystem copy supplies the media while the database restores Immich’s paths and metadata. Backing up generated content as well can save time, but it does not remove the need to protect the original-content folders and the database separately.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.When an external library is the better choice
An external library is reasonable when your files already live in a folder you manage independently and you want Immich to index them without copying them into its upload storage. It is less suitable when album recreation, duplicate handling across multiple locations, or metadata editing from Immich is central to the migration.
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- Duplicate checking is limited and operates per external library rather than as a universal check across all libraries.
- A read-only mount prevents Immich from saving metadata edits back to the files or their location.
Those constraints make the external-library route a deliberate storage architecture, not a shortcut that preserves every behavior of an uploaded collection.
Troubleshooting decision points
Albums are missing or incomplete
Confirm that album synchronization was enabled and that you imported the JSON sidecars alongside the media. Check whether the affected items were filtered as archived, trashed, partner-shared, or unmatched. If the files were unmatched, less metadata is expected and album association may not be available.
Dates are wrong
Inspect the original Takeout JSON and the importer’s match result for an affected file. Edited files, bursts, and duplicates are documented sources of matching difficulty. Do not “fix” a whole collection by changing filesystem modification times; the importer is intended to use original capture-date metadata.
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Some files imported without descriptions or locations
Look for an unmatched report and verify that the JSON sidecar’s filename relationship is intact. If the information is in XMP instead, confirm that it is in one of Immich’s supported fields and that the sidecar base name matches the media file.
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Stop the import, preserve the original Takeout archive, and increase available destination capacity before retrying. Remember that extraction, destination storage, and backup copies can coexist during migration; sizing only for the final library is insufficient.
A restore shows files but no organization
Restore the matching Immich database backup as well as the filesystem folders. A database dump does not contain the photos and videos, while a filesystem copy alone does not recreate Immich’s metadata and paths.
Recommended sequence in one checklist
- Choose upload-library or external-library storage, understanding the external-library limits.
- Reserve space for archives, extraction, destination files, and a separate backup.
- Export Google Photos with Takeout and retain every archive plus its JSON files.
- Prepare Immich and set a writable
UPLOAD_LOCATION. - Run the current immich-go Takeout workflow with album synchronization and the filters you actually want.
- Review counts, albums, dates, descriptions, locations, duplicates, and unmatched items.
- Back up the database and the critical filesystem folders independently.
- Keep the original Takeout archive until the migration and restore plan have both been tested.
The Immich Quick Start and XMP and backup documentation were updated October 8, 2026, while immich-go is a community-maintained, moving document. Exact behavior can change with later releases, so check the current guides for your installed versions and validate with your own Takeout archive.
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