I’ve switched from managed photo providers (such as Apple or Google photos) to a self-hosted Photoprism instance. This note documents my setup.
I use Linode for this, and you can get a free $100 credit using this referral link.
Update: More recently I’ve migrated Photoprism over to a home-based Raspberry Pi, which works great.
Server setup
Provision a new server or instance (at least 4GB memory and 2 CPU cores), and create and attach a big (I use 1TB) volume.
Encrypt the attached volume using LUKS, create a filesystem, mount points (fstab
, etc.) and mount it (e.g. to /data
).
Alternatively use fscrypt to encrypt a directory.
This note should help with the encryption process.
Install Docker and Docker Compose.
Running Photoprism
Create a docker-compose.yml
:
version: '3.5'
services:
photoprism:
image: photoprism/photoprism:latest
depends_on:
- mariadb
restart: unless-stopped
security_opt:
- seccomp:unconfined
- apparmor:unconfined
ports:
- "80:2342"
environment:
PHOTOPRISM_ADMIN_PASSWORD: "CHANGEME"
PHOTOPRISM_AUTH_MODE: "password"
PHOTOPRISM_SITE_URL: "http://CHANGEME"
PHOTOPRISM_ORIGINALS_LIMIT: 5000
PHOTOPRISM_HTTP_COMPRESSION: "gzip"
PHOTOPRISM_LOG_LEVEL: "info"
PHOTOPRISM_READONLY: "false"
PHOTOPRISM_EXPERIMENTAL: "false"
PHOTOPRISM_DISABLE_CHOWN: "false"
PHOTOPRISM_DISABLE_WEBDAV: "false"
PHOTOPRISM_DISABLE_SETTINGS: "false"
PHOTOPRISM_DISABLE_TENSORFLOW: "false"
PHOTOPRISM_DISABLE_FACES: "false"
PHOTOPRISM_DISABLE_CLASSIFICATION: "false"
PHOTOPRISM_DISABLE_RAW: "false"
PHOTOPRISM_RAW_PRESETS: "false"
PHOTOPRISM_JPEG_QUALITY: 85
PHOTOPRISM_DETECT_NSFW: "false"
PHOTOPRISM_UPLOAD_NSFW: "true"
PHOTOPRISM_DATABASE_DRIVER: "mysql"
PHOTOPRISM_DATABASE_SERVER: "mariadb:3306"
PHOTOPRISM_DATABASE_NAME: "photoprism"
PHOTOPRISM_DATABASE_USER: "photoprism"
PHOTOPRISM_DATABASE_PASSWORD: "CHANGEME"
PHOTOPRISM_SITE_CAPTION: "AI-Powered Photos App"
PHOTOPRISM_SITE_DESCRIPTION: ""
PHOTOPRISM_SITE_AUTHOR: ""
working_dir: "/photoprism"
volumes:
- "/data/originals:/photoprism/originals"
- "./import:/photoprism/import"
- "/data/storage:/photoprism/storage"
mariadb:
restart: unless-stopped
image: mariadb:10.8
security_opt:
- seccomp:unconfined
- apparmor:unconfined
command: mysqld --innodb-buffer-pool-size=512M --transaction-isolation=READ-COMMITTED --character-set-server=utf8mb4 --collation-server=utf8mb4_unicode_ci --max-connections=512 --innodb-rollback-on-timeout=OFF --innodb-lock-wait-timeout=120
volumes:
- "/data/database:/var/lib/mysql"
environment:
MARIADB_AUTO_UPGRADE: "1"
MARIADB_INITDB_SKIP_TZINFO: "1"
MARIADB_DATABASE: "photoprism"
MARIADB_USER: "photoprism"
MARIADB_PASSWORD: "CHANGEME"
MARIADB_ROOT_PASSWORD: "CHANGEME"
Bring up the instance using docker-compose up -d
. I personally host this in a private Tailscale network so I don’t bother with TLS certificates, but you may want to stick Photoprism behind a reverse proxy if you intend to expose it publicly.
Backups
Photoprism provides its own backup facility. However, since I run nearly everything in Docker, I am hesitant when adding too much configuration to the host itself.
Instead I added a Restic-based backup container specifically made for Photoprism. To use this, simply add the following to the bottom of the docker-compose.yml
and bring the services back up:
...
photosbackup:
image: wilw/photoprism-backup
restart: always
volumes:
- "/path/to/originals:/photoprism/originals"
environment:
PHOTOPRISM_DATABASE_SERVER: "mariadb"
PHOTOPRISM_DATABASE_NAME: "photoprism"
PHOTOPRISM_DATABASE_USER: "photoprism"
PHOTOPRISM_DATABASE_PASSWORD: "CHANGEME"
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID: "CHANGEME"
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY: "CHANGEME"
RESTIC_REPOSITORY: "s3:endpoint/bucket"
RESTIC_PASSWORD: "CHANGEME"
RESTIC_HOSTNAME: "hostname"
Documentation for the container is available here (specifically around configuring the Restic repos).
Syncing photos
I take many photos on my phone. In the old days of Apple and Google Photos, the official apps would seamlessly sync photos to the cloud. To replicate this model with Photoprism, I downloaded the PhotoSync app, which has built-in support for Photoprism servers. Below summarises my setup:
- I configured PhotoSync with my Photoprism server as a target, and configured it to upload to the Photoprism
/import
directory. - I setup an Autotransfer trigger in PhotoSync to automatically upload new photos and videos when I attach my charger each evening.