Discussion Thread - Changes to mobile app layout and flows #12597
Replies: 45 comments 77 replies
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I'm honestly a big fan of these changes, I like the consistent UI/UX, and I think this will fit well into the Immich app. Love to see the app developing more, much love and keep up the good work! |
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I am missing the 'group by' function in albums |
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I was thinking about it. Then, settle on not having it on the mobile app since it works well on larger screens. On a smaller screen, the easiest way to get to the target album is by searching for the album name using fuzzy search |
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Won't the app suffer from loading the full list of albums? As this is what happens (happened) right now as well. Having a large number of albums, then grouping prevents the app from the need to load this list. |
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I think you are talking about two different things in the same context
The app will have to sync the complete list of albums regardless so it can work offline. |
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But what would be the problem of having maybe an option to toggle the 'group' by function on and off. For example in my case, I have a few albums with the same names but in are grouped in different years . But if I would now add the year to the album name it will be again annoying in the web ui. I think it would just be a great addition to make the album exprience more consistant. |
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Primary case for my user base (family with 600+ albums) is being able to search albums {self and shared} simultaneously. |
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Yeah, the fuzzy search takes into account your use case |
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This, plus the ability for all users to add tags to both self and shared albums. |
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Will "On this device" show all device folders, like gphotos? It'd be neat to still be able to view the device images even of folders aren't backed up. Would be quite nice if it allowed individual photo backup then :). |
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Yes, it will be |
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Great! This is something I've been missing for a while. Follow-up question: Will there be functionality to add individual photos/videos from those local directories to the immich database? (like g-photos does?). Every once in a while I simply want to sync a particular photo from a local directory to my photos stored on immich, but without syncing the entire directory. Follow-up to the follow-up: on a similar note, regarding the ability to upload photos from other sources than the sync'd directories, g-photos allows users to sync individual photos to their library directly from other apps. An example of this workflow: I am having a WhatsApp conversation with a friend. Friend send me a photo. I open the photo and click the share button, then select g-photos as the target application. G-photos now uploads that photo to my library. |
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along these lines.. would it be possible to make Immich a destination via the (Android) Share feature? Edit: looks like @IrrerPolterer and I had the same idea at almost exactly the same moment.. 😄 |
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I started some work on this https://github.com/immich-app/immich/tree/share-to-immich-1 |
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I believe there is a similar feature request. Let's not using this thread as feature request thread 😅 |
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I'd personally prefer not to have the Collections tab and keep it as it is with Search to the left of Library, similar to older versions of that other app. My main reasoning for this is because:
The only real way I'd accept the new Collections tab is if it was on the far right where Library is and with the promise of no further major UI changes (not including new features, etc obviously). |
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Maybe allowing the user to customise the order of the navigation bar sections other than the default, also allowing to enable/disable them would be a good idea? |
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I was thinking the same and it would be fine as a future improvement after the initial change. All the options (favorites, people, map, etc.) could be options to put in the bottom bar in the preferred order. Or a simpler approach could be fix timeline to slot 1 and collections to slot 4 and let the user define slots 2 & 3. |
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My point is that if all there is, is a search bar, it won't be something people tap on as often as, for example, the album tab, so putting the album tab before the search tab seems like a better move from a UX perspective. |
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That depends, personally I use search way more than albums because I have yet to group most of my pictures into albums. I could be in the minority, but I don't believe we have any data to definitely say which tab is more frequently used. |
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I agree with putting all the collections functionality under Search. This is how other major mobile photo apps define search (any/all criteria) and what people are used to. Collections to me sounds like something I am manually compiling, rather than search/filtering criteria, which is what you are displaying there. |
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Any plan to add utilities to mobile app? |
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Like the similarity deduplication tool? |
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Yes that's what I'm thinking of. It's the only thing in utilities right now I believe |
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+1 for being able to work on duplicates (and future utilities) from mobile! |
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+1 on this too. This would really help since deleting files in immich app in iOS can also delete duplicates on device. |
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@spupuz We have a feature request for this, and your request has also been heard many times. We gave a reason why it is not being worked on yet and when the feature is expected to be available. I will hide your comment as it doesn't fit the thread's context. We will take more severe action if this keeps repeating. |
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I am looking foward for this nice new features. Thank you! |
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Are there any plans to add a forbidden-fruit style search function? It could make searching and filtering much faster as you can do everything from a keyboard instead of menus. The collections page could be merged with the search (similar to how it is on the current app version) while albums could be its own page. The search could also search for albums too which could allow the user to filter for file types in a specific album. |
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A rough draft of the search page 
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And an EXTREMELY rough draft of what search suggestions could look like 😅 
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Yes, adding “filter tags” like the forbidden-fruit app does it would be fantastic. Especially with People, there are a ton of use cases:
Maybe even adding simple logic (like pictures of June 2024 that are not screenshots), but that might be too complex. |
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yup, as of right now the app can do most of that but it can be clunky to use as you have to navigate through the filter menus, simply typing and selecting would make filtering much faster. |
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I like this much better than having a separate collections tab. Nicely done! |
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A tiny critique: I’d like to see the word “Immich” be removed in favor of just the logo which would open space for the search bar to be at the top (where I find most search bars). This would open more space in the bottom bar for a (user customizable?) set of icons. That’s really all I have at the moment; everything looks like a logical evolution of the UI. |
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That's an interesting idea, I know lots of app don't actually have text anymore, just relying on icon recognition. |
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I think this could be a really nice idea - as you say, it makes search resident at the top, and frees up more vertical space for looking at photos/timelines/collections by shrinking the "header". And, again as you say, it would remove the need for a search button on the bottom toolbar, so it could be replaced with a user customisable button. So the first three buttons are fixed, and the fourth button could be user customisable to wherever users find themselves most frequently (people, locations, tags, folders, etc.) |
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The text wouldn't have to be always removed right? I imagine a smaller search bar that expands into the place of the text when clicked could work too. |
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A pattern I've seen on other apps is to have the search icon on top...
and when pressed the entire top bar becomes the search.
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Yes, I like that expanding search bar very much. Not sure how much dev energy that would require, but I love it. |
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Could I suggest some changes to the UI in the 'Photos' tab. I pulled this of a feature reqest: #12022 (comment) Inspirations from the forbidden-fruit. I think this makes the most use of the screen real estate. The bottom area where we select (All photos/Day/month/year) AND the top area where it shows the date range -> All are just overlaid on top of the images, which is awesome in the sense that it does not allocate an entire area for that information. 
The (All photos/Day/month/year) might not be totally necessary, but I really like the way the dates are overlaid over the images. It still uses that area of the screen for images. And immich does the following -> the dates are taking up way too much real estate. Overlaying them on the images would look so much better. 
And once you scroll to a day that has a lot of images, you see nothing that tell you what day it is..feels a bit lost - like the following. Overlaying the date here would make for a good experience in my opinion. |
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I agree. I think that the immich app has a lot of empty space on the timeline, so you have to scroll more to find the photo you’re looking for. The main thing though would be to add the date at the top so you can always see it when scrolling. |
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In my case I prefer the dates on a plain background, it is much easier for me to see them than when they are on the photos. |
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I like the way that Telegram handles dates when youre scrolling - as you scroll, it will show a small popup with the date of the messages. I know Immich has this when you are using the scroll bar for fast scrubbing, but the slow scroll date popup could be useful for extra context.
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Interesting idea, but I prefer the way App-Which-Must-Not-Be-Named does it. |
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It's basically the same thing, just that the placement in Google Photos makes more sense. So yeah, if we could have this feature, it'd be nice. |
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This is looking great! While I am not a huge fan of the App-Which-Must-Not-Be-Named 'collections' page, I can see why others find it useful. My only question is, what will be the difference between the 'Albums' in the navigation bar and the 'Albums' group in the 'collections' page? It seems a little redundant. I see that in the collections page you can differentiate between 'albums in Immich' and 'albums on the device', will these not be available in the navigation bar 'Albums' page? |
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This is the feedback from scouting their subreddit. There are many folks mentioned that it takes many layers to get to the albums page, where it is one of the two most fundamental views, besides the timeline. So I decided to put them in the navigation bar for ease of access. |
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I agree. Photos and Albums are the two things I use most often, and I like that the new design gives quick access to them |
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Agreed. Photos, Albums and People (which is now under Collections). |
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Will the tags it be stored alongside the file in a proper xmp sidecar as well? |
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It will be stored in the XMP file on the server, so the mobile app just make requests to the Immich server |
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I'm concerned about losing the ability to see "Partner Photos" from the share tab. Will that be located somewhere else. My wife and I use that all the time. Thanks! |
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It will be located in the Collections page as well, below the grouping you are seeing in the screenshot |
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Thank you for the reply! Glad to hear that! |
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Looks good! The new albums view would make using the app easier for the people I'm sharing a lot of albums with. Many of them use the app just to view the shared albums so I think there could also be an option in the settings for the default tab. That way I could set it to "albums" and the people who don't have their own photos but want to use the app to view shared would not need to see the "building the timeline" loading circle that never actually completes. Another setting that could be useful, but maybe outside the scope of this topic would be "show shared photos in timeline". I'm not sure how difficult this would be though as I have not explored that part of the codebase. |
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I think this is out of scope here, but I would also love a "show shared photos in timeline" option! |
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Good work on the app. I have some suggestions. The video explains it. |
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I had a think about it last night after reading through everything, and I have come around on a lot of it, so it looks promising. The one thing I am concerned about is how the flow will change with the loss of the Sharing tab. Before, shared links, partner sharing, and shared albums are there. A lot of that is moved under Collections now, I can see from above discussion, but (1) “Collections” is a somewhat opaque name, (2) partner sharing is now off-screen (I would have to scroll down), and (3) in terms of UI design, having extra taps for subcategories inside of “Collections” is non-ideal, but it will depend on how space is allocated. For the last point, what you have currently in Search is quite good: People and Places in separate side scrolling lists. That’s because frequent places and people will just be more easily accessible, whereas the proposed organisation of Collections relegates all of that to a forced two taps at minimum. You might consider organising it more similarly to how Search is organised, along with naming it something clearer than “Collections”. Hope that’s helpful, constructive criticism! 🙂 |
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Firtsly I want to say thank you for your great work. I'm really enjoying the self hosting journey using Immich. I'm interested to see how the tag view will look under the collections tab. With the tagging feature introduction in the web app, I started to really like it as a method for organising and viewing photos, although I would love the ability to search by tags and, from the Tag view itself, be able to do all the same multi-photo edits that are possile from the standard Photos/library view (including editing the tags). I realise tagging is very new and these features are possibly already in the pipeline. A little off topic - but with tags, I can see it being a possible solution to a small dillmema I've had - I'm yet to migrate my library from the app that must not be named because I'm reluctant to mix all my thousdands of average photos taken by my phone of the years with the current Immich library that mostly contains nice quality photos taken using our camera or from family photoshoots. I was thinking that having the option to have completely separate libraries that you could quickly flick between under the same account would be nice, but if I could auto-tag photos that upload from my phone album, and then view and manage them from the tags veiw, I think this would be satisfactory. I'm mentioning this here in case someone else has another suggestion on how to approach this, or can confirm that the necessary updates to the tags view/feature are coming :-) |
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Looking really great so far. Food for thought: Consider separating the functions currently proposed for collections as follows: COLLECTIONS: SEARCH ALBUMS: |
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I would LOVE if you achieve such fluency as App-Which-Must-Not-Be-Named has. Immich's android app is really not that great for now. It lacks the fluency and consistency / stability that every gallery must have. Right, Immich is not gallery focused project, but you're viewing photos and managing them. If you started to redesign app and make multiple touches like you mentioned here, you definitely should look into those basic gallery functions. To this day i spot many bugs (like gray screen when loading video; or the video refuses to load; or swiping between photos without trinngering the bars for manipulation the photo) and slowness of the app (which was, by the way, it's advantage when immich became public). You're adding so many features and fulfilling wishes of smaller and smaller groups of users that would appreciate such features. It's not bad to add new features to keep the pace with other apps but you NEED to look into stability, fluency and overall interaction with the app so bad. Till this day i still use QuickPic for viewing the photos because it is so much better and faster experience than Immich. |
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I cant agree more. Immich is great, but when I need to look for picture real quick, I open my native photos app (iOS). Immich is so slow and laggy (refresh rate?) which I am not a fan of. Not to mention - If you open immich as soon as you take a picture - it takes a couple of seconds to show up in Immich. I have been using Immich for about 2 years now. And I was a sucker for new and cool features. But now, all I want is consistency and polish across the app and the webui. Consistent UI/UX across different views etc. It is difficult to ask someone to use Immich when they can do certain actions in the webui, but not in the app etc (just an example). But looks like the team wants to focus on these aspects now, which is great. |
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I agree. Especially with your focus from new features to consistency over time. |
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Development has cycles such as new features -> bug fixing -> refactoring -> optimization. Stability is our goal for the stable release. As you have seen over the last few releases, more and more releases are being carried out with work that focuses on bug fixing and stability. Let's use this discussion thread for what it is meant for. If you need more context of the info below, please reach out to us on Discord |
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Folks, as mentioned upthread let's keep this discussion focused to the changes in the original thread and not turn it into a general grievances/feature requests thread. |
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Looking good! I think you've got the most important improvements covered, especially the removal of the "Sharing" top-level navigation zone. Why the term "Collections"? My first question when seeing the 4 sections is: what is the difference between "Albums" and "Collections"? The icons didn't help me work this out either - not sure if they are standardised or finalised yet. Perhaps the issue is different in different translations of the app anyway, but as a native British English speaker I find "Collections" too ambiguous. It could easily be interpreted as "collections of photos", which is my understanding of what an "Album" is. Once looking at the details of what will be included in each section (or stumbling around clicking everywhere in the app as a first time user) I think it becomes clear that "Albums" is just one of the "Collections" but an initial experience would be better if that were more obvious at an earlier point. Perhaps the existing "Library" term works better - that's closer to a meaning of a "collection of collections" and might be less likely to be interpreted as a "collection of photos". Since it is singular, that may also help with an understanding that this one place is the main place to go to see everything - similarly to the singular "Search" view which can also operate across the entirety of photos, albums and other collections. Personally I would prefer a reduction in the clutter on the bottom bar by removing the Albums view but I'd be OK with it as long as the ambiguity between "Albums" and "Collections" can be resolved. Would clicking "Albums" within "Collections" navigate you to the top-level "Albums" view? I think being able to see all the details of your albums within both top-level areas could be confusing (especially if state is maintained when toggling between each top-level app view, which is something that is otherwise quite desirable in my opinion) so a "shortcut" from the collections might be the best option if we must have a dedicated "Albums" section of the app. I think the proposed move of Search to the end is great too, especially if we end up with labels in this order: "Photos", "Albums", "Library", "Search" - those first 3 are then logically increasing from "an item" to a "all of a single type of a collection of items" to a "all types of a collection of items", without the current interruption of the search feature that is not directly related to that hierarchy. Perhaps label the album search as "Search album name" to clarify that it won't allow the user to search properties of the photos within those albums, and thus lead them to discover the top-level Search option instead. |
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I strongly agree. |
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Yeah I am leaning toward Library instead of Collections now |
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I don't know if the topic has been discussed, in the shared albums section, currently the oldest ones appear first, and if there are many albums it is tedious to get to the last one, is this planned to be modified? Or at least to be able to choose how the shared albums are displayed? |
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When you change the sorting method on the top of the library page, it also applies to the sharing page. |
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Is there a beta version to try? |
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Changes to mobile app layout and flows
Hello Immich fan,
With the recent addition of features such as folders and tags to the web client, we are working to add those views to the mobile app and update older features to provide a better user experience. Taking some inspiration from the App-Which-Must-Not-Be-Named and the Forbidden-Fruit, we are looking at the options below. We look forward to the discussion and feedback to make the UX as best as possible for you, your family, and your users. Please help us gather feedback from the users on your instance as well.
Navigation bar
We removed the
SharingandLibrarypages and replaced them withAlbumsandCollectionsso that you can easily access the two most used pages for viewing and managing your assets,PhotosandAlbumsAlbums page
This view includes all the albums you own or that are shared with you. It also includes a few utility tools.
The album thumbnail is now notably larger for ease of recognition.
Collections page
Since we've added many features, this page will be the place for quickly browsing the different grouping mechanisms provided by Immich. Below are some collections that will be present on this screen
Perhaps with some quick access buttons to the collection of Videos, Live Photos/Motion Photos, and recently added items.
We plan to work on those changes in the coming weeks. We are looking forward to discussing this with you!
Cheers,
Immich team
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