immich-photo-manager

📸🧹🗺️ MCP server for intelligent photo management with Immich — your self-hosted library, understood.

If you self-host Immich and your library has grown past the point where you can manage it by hand, immich-photo-manager gives Claude direct access to your Immich instance through 21 MCP tools and 11 specialized skills — from finding cross-ecosystem duplicates with perceptual hashing to generating interactive HTML galleries with a Cowork Actions Panel.

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🚀 Quick Start

Prerequisites

• A running Immich instance (self-hosted, v1.90+)
• An Immich API key (how to create one)
• Python 3.10+ with pip (download)

Option A: Install as Claude Plugin (recommended)

git clone https://github.com/drolosoft/immich-photo-manager.git
cd immich-photo-manager

# Register the marketplace and install
claude plugin marketplace add .
claude plugin install immich-photo-manager

Verify with claude plugin list.

That's it. Open Claude and say "how healthy is my photo library?" to get started.

Note: The plugin connects to your Immich MCP server at localhost:8626. Make sure the server is running before using the plugin. See Option B for how to build and start the server.

Option B: Manual MCP Server Setup

If you prefer to configure the MCP server manually instead of using the setup script:

git clone https://github.com/drolosoft/immich-photo-manager.git
cd immich-photo-manager
pip3 install -r src/requirements.txt

Create .mcp.json in the project root:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "immich": {
      "command": "python3",
      "args": ["-m", "immich_mcp_server"],
      "env": {
        "PYTHONPATH": "/ABSOLUTE/PATH/TO/immich-photo-manager/src",
        "MCP_TRANSPORT": "stdio",
        "IMMICH_BASE_URL": "https://your-immich-server.com",
        "IMMICH_API_KEY": "your-api-key-here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Important: Use PYTHONPATH pointing to the src/ directory. Do NOT use cwd (it is silently ignored by Claude Code).

Note on Smart Search (CLIP): The search_smart tool requires the Immich machine learning service to be running and Smart Search enabled in Administration > Settings > Machine Learning Settings > Smart Search. If the ML service is not configured, the tool will return a helpful error message instead of failing silently. All other tools work without the ML service. See the Immich Smart Search docs for setup details.

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🎬 Core Workflow

You: "Create albums for all the places I've traveled"

→ Scans GPS data from 28,000+ photos
→ Clusters by location, identifies 47 destinations across 14 countries
→ Proposes album list for approval
→ Creates albums with curated selections (20-50 photos each)
→ Publishes to Gallery with shared links

✅ Created: 🇮🇹 Roma, Italia (47 photos, Jun 2023)
✅ Created: 🇪🇬 Cairo & Luxor, Egypt (63 photos, Mar 2024)
✅ Created: 🇲🇽 Oaxaca, México (38 photos, Dec 2022)
... 44 more albums

Geographic album creation combines GPS coordinates, CLIP visual search, and temporal matching — then filters out screenshots and duplicates automatically. One request, dozens of curated albums.

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✨ Features

	Feature	What it does
🔍	AI-powered search	Natural language photo search via CLIP ("sunset at the beach", "birthday cake")
🗺️	Geographic albums	Create albums organized by place — GPS + CLIP combined for smart curation
🧹	Library cleanup	Detect screenshots, duplicates, and low-quality images with multi-signal analysis
🔎	Duplicate report	Deep cross-source duplicate analysis using perceptual hashing — finds re-encoded copies across Apple Photos, Google Photos, and other imports
🏥	Library health	Comprehensive health check — asset inventory, metadata quality, storage breakdown, and recommendations
📅	Timeline gaps	Find missing months, sparse periods, and single-source coverage risks in your photo timeline
🔧	Metadata fixer	Detect and repair broken dates (noon/midnight), missing GPS, wrong timezones — with neighbor interpolation
📌	Auto-album curator	Finds new photos that belong in existing albums using GPS, CLIP, and temporal matching
💾	Storage optimizer	Identify RAW+JPEG pairs, oversized videos, and other space hogs with reclaimable space estimates
👥	People report	Face recognition insights — who appears most, unnamed clusters worth naming, co-occurrence patterns
🌍	Travel map	Interactive Leaflet.js map with clustered pins showing every place you've photographed
🔗	Gallery publishing	Create shared links to make albums publicly accessible
🖼️	Interactive HTML galleries	Self-contained gallery pages with embedded thumbnails, 3 themes (light/system/dark), 4 view modes, slideshow, and keyboard navigation
🎛️	Cowork Actions Panel	Select photos in the gallery and copy batch commands (Create Album, Get EXIF, Find Similar, Download, etc.) straight into Cowork chat
🛡️	Safety first	Never deletes automatically — always shows findings and asks before acting

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🖼️ Interactive Gallery & Cowork Actions

Say "show me photos from Barcelona" and the plugin generates a self-contained HTML gallery — no server required, opens in any browser.

You: "Show me my Egypt album"

→ Fetches album + base64 thumbnails from Immich
→ Generates single-file HTML with embedded images
→ 3 themes (light/system/dark), 4 view modes, slideshow, keyboard nav
→ Cowork Actions Panel for batch operations

✅ egypt-album.html — open it, browse your photos, select & act

The Cowork Actions Panel is a sticky toolbar inside each gallery. Select photos, then click any action — the command is copied to your clipboard, ready to paste into Cowork chat:

Action	What it copies
📋 Copy IDs	Raw asset IDs for scripting
➕ Create Album	"Create a new album with these photos: ..."
📂 Add to Album	"Add these photos to album [name]: ..."
📦 Move to Album	"Move these photos to a different album: ..."
🔍 Get EXIF Info	"Get EXIF metadata for these photos: ..."
🔎 Find Similar	"Find visually similar photos to: ..."
🖼️ Set as Cover	"Set this photo as the album cover: ..."
⬇️ Download	"Download these photos: ..."
❤️ Add to Favs	"Mark these photos as favorites: ..."
⚠️ Remove from Album	"Remove these from album [name]: ..."
🗑️ Delete Photos	"Delete these photos permanently: ..."

The gallery is fully responsive, works offline once generated, and supports touch gestures on mobile.

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🤔 Why immich-photo-manager?

Immich is excellent at storing, viewing, and searching your photos. But managing a large library — deduplication, metadata repair, album curation, storage analysis — still requires manual effort or custom scripts. immich-photo-manager bridges that gap.

	Manual / scripts	immich-photo-manager
🔍	Write API calls, parse JSON	Natural language — "find my sunset photos from Italy"
🗺️	Export GPS, cluster manually	Geographic albums — automatic GPS + CLIP + temporal matching
🧹	Hash files, diff checksums	Perceptual hashing — finds re-encoded duplicates across import sources
📊	Query database, build reports	Library health — one command for metadata quality, storage, recommendations
📅	SQL queries on timestamps	Timeline gaps — detects empty months and single-source coverage risks
🔧	EXIF tools, manual review	Metadata fixer — neighbor interpolation for missing GPS, broken timestamps
🛡️	Hope you don't delete the wrong thing	Safety first — never deletes without showing findings and asking

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🧩 Skills

Skills are specialized workflows that combine MCP tools with domain knowledge. Each handles a specific photo management task end-to-end.

Skill	What it does
🗺️ Album Manager	Create and curate albums organized by geography — GPS + CLIP + filtering
🔍 Photo Search	Natural language search combining GPS, CLIP, and metadata filters
🧹 Photo Cleanup	Detect screenshots, duplicates, and low-quality images with confidence levels
🔎 Duplicate Report	Cross-source duplicate analysis using perceptual hashing (pHash)
🏥 Library Health	Asset inventory, metadata completeness, storage breakdown, recommendations
📅 Timeline Gaps	Detect empty months, sparse periods, single-source coverage risks
🔧 Metadata Fixer	Repair broken dates, missing GPS, wrong timezones with neighbor interpolation
📌 Auto-Album Curator	Find new photos that match existing albums using GPS, CLIP, and temporal patterns
💾 Storage Optimizer	Identify RAW+JPEG pairs, oversized videos, reclaimable space estimates
👥 People Report	Face recognition insights — top faces, unnamed clusters, co-occurrence patterns
🌍 Travel Map	Interactive Leaflet.js map with clustered pins and heatmap overlay

See the Skills Reference for detailed workflows, triggers, and output formats.

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⚙️ How It Works

Claude ←→ MCP (stdio) ←→ Python Server ←→ Immich REST API
                                              your-instance

The MCP server is a Python module (immich_mcp_server) that communicates with Claude over stdio transport. It exposes 21 tools that map to Immich REST API endpoints, with added intelligence for batch operations, thumbnail embedding, and credential management.

Gallery HTML files are fully self-contained — thumbnails are fetched from Immich, encoded as base64, and embedded directly in the HTML. This is required because the Cowork viewer runs in an about: sandbox that blocks all external network requests. See Architecture for the full technical explanation.

21 MCP Tools

Category	Tools
🏥 Health (3)	ping, get_server_version, get_statistics
📷 Assets (2)	get_asset_info, get_map_markers
🔍 Search (2)	search_metadata, search_smart (CLIP)
📁 Albums (7)	list_albums, get_album, create_album, update_album, delete_album, add_assets_to_album, remove_assets_from_album
🔗 Sharing (2)	list_shared_links, create_shared_link
🖼️ Thumbnails (3)	get_asset_thumbnail, get_album_thumbnails, get_thumbnails_batch
🔧 Config (2)	get_connection_info, update_credentials

See the MCP Tools Reference for parameters, return types, and examples.

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📚 Documentation

Document	Description
Getting Started	Installation, configuration, deployment options, and troubleshooting
Architecture	How base64-embedded thumbnails solve the Cowork sandbox restriction
Skills Reference	All 11 skills — workflows, triggers, parameters, output formats
MCP Tools Reference	All 21 MCP tools — parameters, return types, examples
CORS Setup Guide	Optional — enable direct URL thumbnail loading for browser-viewed galleries

Additional dependencies (optional)

Some advanced skills require Python packages or direct database access:

pip3 install Pillow imagehash pillow-heif

Package	Used by	Purpose
Pillow	duplicate-report	Image loading
imagehash	duplicate-report	Perceptual hashing (pHash)
pillow-heif	duplicate-report	HEIC/HEIF support (Apple Photos)
PostgreSQL client	library-health, timeline-gaps, people-report, storage-optimizer	Database-level analysis

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🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome. If you find a bug, have a feature idea, or want to improve a skill:

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/my-feature)
3. Commit your changes
4. Open a pull request

For bug reports and feature requests, use GitHub Issues.

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☕ Support

If immich-photo-manager saved you time or made your photo library easier to manage, consider buying me a coffee — it keeps the next one coming!

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📜 License

MIT License — free to use, modify, and distribute.

Forged by Drolosoft · Tools we wish existed