Immich v3.3: shared people and birthday memories
Immich v3.3 is out, and this is one of those releases you notice in daily use. People can now be shared between accounts, birthdays get their own memory, and photos you edit on your phone stop cluttering your timeline. Here is what changed and what it means for you on PixelUnion.
First the good news: you don’t have to do anything. We are updating every PixelUnion account to v3.3 ourselves.
Share people with your family
The last release introduced cluster groups, a way to connect with people you trust on your PixelUnion instance so Immich can recognize the same faces across shared photos. v3.3 takes the next step. You can now share a person with someone else in your group.
Say you and your partner both upload photos of your kids. Until now, you each had to name them separately. Now you share “Lisa” once, and she shows up in both your People lists, on the web and in the mobile app. She is also recognized in the photo details, whether the photo is yours or one that was shared with you.
A few things to know before you start:
- Sharing goes one way. If you want it to work in both directions, you each share the person back.
- Both of you can edit the name and birth date. By default, a change applies to everyone with access. In the edit window on the web you can choose “Only me” instead, and in your sharing settings you can make that your default.
- You can merge a face from your own photos with a person someone shared with you. Handy if you joined a cluster group without resetting facial recognition: share both ways, then link the people together by hand.
- You manage access from the People page or your sharing settings on the web. The mobile app doesn’t have this option yet.
Birthday memories, tidier edits and sharper thumbnails
Birthday memories. If you have added a birth date to someone in your People list, Immich now marks their birthday with a special memory of photos from previous birthdays. It is a small feature, but it is exactly the kind of thing that makes you open the app and smile.
Phone edits stack on the original. If you edit photos in another app on your phone, like your phone’s built-in editor or Lightroom, Immich now stacks the edited version on top of the original when it uploads. You get one item in your timeline instead of two near-identical photos, and the original stays right there in the stack.
Sharper thumbnails and previews. Immich now uses a more accurate method to resize images. It keeps more detail and gets the brightness right, especially in high-contrast spots like thin branches against a bright sky. New uploads get the improved thumbnails. Thumbnails that already exist stay as they are.
There is also a batch of smaller improvements:
- You can leave a shared album from the web.
- Album editors can now change the album title and description, on the web and on mobile.
- A new keyboard shortcut on the web removes photos from an album.
- JFIF image files are now supported.
- The activity log in shared albums opens on the latest comments.
- Map labels in non-Latin scripts, like Japanese or Arabic, display properly.
- The mobile app no longer uploads a photo the server already has, and background backup picks up again when your connection comes back.
Rolling out to your PixelUnion account
We are rolling out v3.3 to all PixelUnion accounts. There is nothing to install or upgrade on your side. Once your account is updated, the new features are there the next time you sign in. Keep the Immich app on your phone up to date through your app store, so it matches the new version.
Personally, I’m most excited about shared people. When everyone in the family sees the same names, Immich starts to feel like one shared photo album instead of a few separate accounts. Thanks to the Immich team for another strong release.
Not on PixelUnion yet?