[Feature] Choose Libraries for Partner Sharing

[dpantel]

The feature

Currently Partner Sharing is all-or-nothing. I would like to enable Partner Sharing for some Libraries, not not for others.

For example, I have childhood photos (as an external library) that I want to view on my account, but don't want to share with my partner. But I do want to share my default library and another external library with said partner.

Thank you.

Platform

• Server
• Web
• Mobile

[v411e]

Yes, it would be cool to have an option to whitelist or blacklist specific folder paths on sharings between users. Maybe even allowing to share different paths with different users (The photos I want to share with my dad are not the same that I want to share with my partner)

[kaaku3]

I would love partner share based on facial recognition, that's what I did in google photos.

[michaelhthomas]

I'd personally like to see libraries exist outside of users, something like how Jellyfin works with media. This might be too radical, but I'm imagining each user having their "default" library where uploads are placed, as well as access to external libraries that they have been added to. The admin will be able to control which external libraries exist, what their paths are, and who they are shared with.

I feel like that would make a bit more sense than the current approach, as having individual users make their own external libraries feels pretty strange, and I think this makes more sense as an administrative task. As a plus, with support for removing assets from external libraries coming, this could help close the gap between "internal" libraries and "internal" libraries.

Here's a quick mockup of what I'm envisioning:

[fonz-zz]

This sounds great! I just imported our external librabry which took a week and then a few more days browsing through the people to hide unknowns from the crowd, give the ones we know a name and birthday and fixing some mismatches.
Imagine my surpsrise when I set up the wifes account and I have to go throught that painfull process again :-( ....
The option of having an external library centraly managed by the admin would be so much time saved!

[ttyridal]

Would love to see this too! Although, if the faces/other-meta data sharing (and searching!) were implemented, I think it could be solved by with some additional shared-asset-owner accounts..

Could be messy if you have a lot of different people sharing different subsets of the collection though.

[mrkaryo]

This would be indeed great to have!!

[tuupola]

I think this is the way most Immich users would prefer libraries and sharing to work. Immich is currently built with mindset of setting up a photo hosting saas. With saas it makes sense to have strict privacy settings such as not sharing face recognition data between users.

My gut feeling says most of Immich users are selfhosters who use it for family and friend photos. Sharing photos and working together with someone for example to tag peoples faces is currently too difficult or even impossible.

[OlJohnny]

This would be extremely great, useful and would definitly set immich apart from the rest!
Might also make the mental transition easier for self-hosters coming from Jellyfin et al
Probably entails a massive rework of basically all systems.
Could someone drop a hint if this is on any roadmap? 😉

[aisbergde]

partner sharing in the current way is useless for me, also the partner sharing in Google photos. we don't use it, because it is not possible to control and limit the content. That's why we are using shared albums in our family. Smart albums, based on persons, are great. I think, they are planned also in immich.

[OrbitingOcelot]

Hey guys, after a lot of fiddling around I sadly found out that I have to import our external library four times. Our use case is we have four users, each accesses a very large shared base library (added as external library), and then everyone has their own stuff on top of it. Is there any better way to currently achieve what I want without importing the same thing four times?

Would be really great to have access control on shared library level, this sounds like a clean and neat solution. Any idea if this might appear on the roadmap some day?

[kaaku3]

I would setup 5 users, 4 actual and one shared. Use partner sharing to share all the pics from the extra account.

[ahayzen]

You can show them in your timeline by using the timeline integration https://immich.app/docs/features/partner-sharing/#timeline-integration

This almost works as a workaround until you can share a library with multiple users but there are a few remaining issues

• You can create albums from shared partner photos from the timeline, but you can't select from the add photos of the album Shared partner photos not present on the create album page #6486
• Facial recognition data is not shared from the partner photos [Feature] Show Face Recognition for Partner #5089

[OrbitingOcelot]

Thanks @kaaku3 and @ahayzen - almost there!

Now the last missing feature for a full integration would be to display the "partner sharing" pictures on the map, that does not seem to work yet - unless you guys also have an idea regarding this?

[ttyridal]

Now the last missing feature for a full integration would be to display the "partner sharing" pictures on the map, that does not seem to work yet - unless you guys also have an idea regarding this?

That's already implemented :) go to options on the map and "show partners photos"

[OrbitingOcelot]

That's already implemented :) go to options on the map and "show partners photos"

Oh wow now I feel really stupid :-) Thank you!

Though I have to say, the small cog button on the map was quite unexpected, would be nice to have this also show up in the settings menu, below "Partner Sharing" -> "Show in timeline", would probably be easier to find...

[phileastv]

This workaround works great ! But have you an idea on how to show partner medias on the "Folder" view ? I think the main use of external libraries is for pictures of "legacy" libraries, which are organized in a folder manner (like old trips pictures...), so it makes sense to see theses medias on a folder view, for multiple people.

[ttyridal]

Totally agree! but this was the judgment of the project when I implemented that one ;)

[wonx]

I'd also be interested in this. We have a main shared picture library with all family members, and then each one has its own private library. Right now the best workaround seems to create a separate user for the shared library, but it definitely feels like a workaround. Some kind of per user access permissions on each library would be idea, like the mockup that @michaelhthomas provided.

[andyghc]

Ditto here. This is a feature that would be desirable.

I think this can be worked around by setting up a shared account that we both use, and I'm sure that will work sufficiently well but also has its own draw-backs.

[sirpaddy]

I really like Immich so far, but this is one thing I miss. I guess this would be a quite common scenario, that you would like to share whole libraries, but not ALL photos like in partner sharing. Would appreciate, if something is coming in the future:)
Thank you!

[gschintgen]

See also: #12614 (sharing in general).

[enlight3d]

Hello, really interested in this feature as well ! Partner sharing kinda works for me, but what I'm missing is the folder view. Partner can't see the folder structure of the shared library 😞

[etnoy]

Did you enable folder view for the other account?

[enlight3d]

Yup. On my account I see the folder structure, but on the second one, it is empty.