[Feature] Allow users to tag, group, organise or categorise albums

[adrfantini]

I have searched the existing feature requests to make sure this is not a duplicate request.

• Yes

The feature

Usecase

As an Immich user, I want to manage my pictures via albums, but I want these albums to be organised, searchable and categorised.
For example, I might want to categorise albums about sport events differently from conferences, vacations, graduations, kids theater performances, ... whatever.

For users that have hundreds of albums, this lack of categorisation is annoying.

Also, album categorisation maps well with what users are historically already used to do, which is organise photos by folder in a filesystem structure.
Especially power users will already have their pictures organised in a similar fashion.

Current situation

This is currently not possible in Immich, as the only 2 ways to categorise albums are:

• via the album name (which is ugly)
• via the album description (which is less accessible and searchable, and cannot be easily filtered)

Yes, the ML engine can be used somewhat to mitigate this problem, but personally I think that's not a good solution, for 2 reasons:

• ML categorises assets, not albums. AFAIK albums cannot be searched via the ML tools currently
• manual categorisation for albums is better for users that want to keep their album library in check

Proposed solutions

Immich could have either:

1. album categories: optional album attributes, each album only has 1
2. album tags: optional album attributes, but multiple, each album can have multiple tags. This is more flexible and arguably better, but would conceptually clash with asset tags and might confuse users.
3. nested albums: as discussed in [Feature]: Nested albums #2073 (and also requested in [Feature]: Nested albums #1010, Nested albums #5024 and feat(server): nested album #8481), having the ability to nest albums would solve this problem, at the cost of great complexity.
4. album folders or groups: somewhat similar to 3, as in [Feature] Tree structured album folders #5078. Having album folders with max level=1 would effectively be equivalent to solution 1 (album categories), although the UI/UX could be different

Personally I think option 2 is the best, while option 1 is the simplest.
As an example, I list the things that should be updated in the UI to achieve option 1.

Example: what needs to change in the UI to implement album categories

If album categories were implemented, the following things would need to be implemented in the UI (both mobile and web):

• search: filters for album categories
• albums list:
  • category should appear on each album card
  • filtering/searching by category should be possible in the header
  • group by: category (albums will have the category "uncategorised" by default)
  • list view should show category
• album view:
  • allow to choose category when creating album
  • category should appear and be modifiable below description
  • clicking on the category should allow to open the album list filtered by that category

I'm sure there are many backend changes to be implemented as well, but not knowing the architecture I cannot go into the details:

• API
• DB
• CLI
• core app

Other implementations of similar concepts

Some examples of how other tools handle this problem:

• Photoprism has album categories
• Photoview has tree-structured album folders
• Apple photos has album folders
• Lychee has nested albums
• Samsung Gallery has grouped albums

Platform

• Server
• Web
• Mobile

[schwa99]

Very well described and meets my requirements exactly. Very well described and meets my requirements exactly. I could not have formulated the requirement any better and it is all the sadder that no one has responded to it for 2 months.

I understand the technical problems with nested albums, but a simple grouping with folders would be enough for me. I find the current different sorting by date in the app and web simply inadequate.

My usecase:
I have events such as Christmas and below that the years or similar.

[adrfantini]

Thank you, appreciate the kind words and the support for the Feature Request.

[bo0tzz]

Please use the upvote button on the original post, a comment like this ends up unnecessarily notifying everyone subscribed to the thread.