Background Backup: The Feature That Makes Your Photo Safety Actually Work
Everyone understands that backups are important. Most people also know, from experience, that they rarely remember to do them. This is the core problem with any backup strategy that depends on your memory or initiative: the gap between when you mean to back up and when you actually do is exactly where disasters live.
Background backup is the answer. It is the mode that makes backup happen without any deliberate action — while your phone sits on your nightstand, while you watch television, while you do anything else. The photos are already safe before you have a chance to forget.
What Background Backup Actually Means
When Immich’s background backup is active, the app continues uploading new photos and videos even when you are not using it. You do not need to open the app, tap anything, or remember to do anything. A photo you take at dinner is quietly in your backup by the time you go to bed.
This sounds simple, but it has real technical implications — especially on modern smartphones, which are aggressive about limiting what apps can do in the background to save battery life.
Android: Making Background Backup Reliable
Android devices vary considerably in how they handle background processes. Stock Android (Google Pixel phones) is relatively permissive. But many manufacturers — Samsung, Xiaomi, Huawei, OnePlus, and others — apply aggressive battery optimization that can kill background tasks, including Immich uploads.
If you find that background backup is not running as expected, the fix is almost always in your phone’s battery settings:
- Go to Settings → Battery (the exact path varies by manufacturer)
- Find Battery optimization or App battery usage
- Locate the Immich app (or PixelUnion app if you are using our custom Android client)
- Set it to Unrestricted or Not optimized
On Samsung devices specifically, you may also need to disable “Put unused apps to sleep” and check “Never sleeping apps” to add Immich to the exceptions list.
This is a one-time setup step. After it is done, background backup runs reliably.
iOS: What to Expect on iPhone
iOS handles background processes differently from Android. Apple limits what apps can do in the background more strictly, which means background uploads on iPhone do not run continuously the way they can on Android.
On iOS, Immich uses background app refresh to periodically upload new photos. The system decides when to run these tasks based on your usage patterns and charging habits. In practice, this usually means your photos are uploaded when your phone is charging and connected to WiFi — which is exactly when you want it to happen.
You can help by enabling Background App Refresh for Immich in your iPhone settings. You can also enable the Upload on background option in the Immich app settings. Opening the app occasionally (even briefly) helps iOS learn that the app is important to you and should be given more background time.
Why Not Just Use iCloud or Google Photos?
You might be thinking: iCloud and Google Photos already do background backup automatically, and without all this configuration hassle. That is true. But there is a significant trade-off.
When Google Photos backs up your photos in the background, they are going to Google’s servers — where they are subject to US law, Google’s terms of service, and Google’s business model. Google has used photos to train AI models. The US CLOUD Act allows American authorities to compel Google to hand over user data, including data stored on European servers, without necessarily notifying the user.
iCloud is operated by Apple, which has somewhat better privacy practices, but the fundamental issue remains: your photos are on someone else’s infrastructure, under someone else’s legal control.
With PixelUnion’s background backup powered by Immich, the photos go to your private server in Europe. No company has access to your library. No terms of service can change to allow AI training on your memories. The backup happens automatically and the destination is fully under your control.
A Practical Checklist
For reliable background backup on your device:
- Android: Set Immich to “Unrestricted” in battery optimization settings
- Android: Check manufacturer-specific settings (Samsung’s “Never sleeping apps”, Xiaomi’s “No restrictions”, etc.)
- iOS: Enable Background App Refresh for Immich
- Both platforms: Enable “WiFi only” if you prefer not to use mobile data
- Both platforms: Keep the app reasonably up to date — background performance improvements are common in updates
The Peace of Mind Argument
There is something worth saying about what it feels like to know that background backup is running. Every photo you take is automatically preserved somewhere other than the device that could be dropped, stolen, or fail. You stop thinking about it entirely, which is exactly the point.
This is what PixelUnion is designed to give you: the confidence that comes from knowing your photo library is safe, private, and running in the background while you get on with your life.