ImmichFrame

Our most cherished photos—the candid smiles, the breathtaking landscapes, the milestone moments—are often trapped on our phones. Immich is a powerful, private, self-hosted alternative to services like Google Photos, but organizing your memories is only half the battle; enjoying them is what truly matters. This is where ImmichFrame enters the picture. It is a community-driven way to liberate your photos and display them beautifully throughout your home, turning your digital archive into a living gallery and highlighting the passion of the self-hosting community.

1. What is ImmichFrame? The digital photo frame you’ve always wanted

ImmichFrame is more than a slideshow toggle inside Immich; it is a dedicated service that interacts with your main library to create a rich, customizable viewing experience.

• ImmichFrame’s role: A separate server you run alongside your Immich instance, with its own web UI and dedicated client apps (such as Android) for display devices. As the project describes it, it’s “an awesome way to display your photos as a digital photo frame.”
• Relationship to Immich: A community project, not an official Immich release. Its independence proves Immich is a platform that sparks creativity and empowers users to build the solutions they need.
• Basic architecture: Your display app talks to the ImmichFrame server, which fetches the right photos from Immich and handles the display logic. This middle layer keeps the experience robust and flexible.

Related read: our earlier post on Immich Kiosk. ImmichFrame is a feature-rich, community-run server with multi-account support, dynamic overlays, and flexible layouts. Immich Kiosk is a lightweight, single-album kiosk app focused on an immersive fullscreen slideshow. Both surface your Immich library, but ImmichFrame targets deep customization while Immich Kiosk prioritizes simplicity.

2. The magic in action: inspiring ways to use ImmichFrame

ImmichFrame has inspired everything from simple gifts to advanced hardware builds. These real-world examples show its versatility.

The perfect gift for family

Buy an inexpensive “Frameo” digital frame, install the ImmichFrame client, and point it to a specific album ID. Every new photo added to that album appears automatically, creating a hands-off stream of surprises for grandparents or distant family.

The living room centerpiece

Run ImmichFrame on Google TV or any spare Android device connected to a television. Users report a “flawless” and “professional” large-screen experience. With Dynamic Overlays for time, location, and live weather, it becomes a functional, high-resolution dashboard for your home.

The ultimate DIY project

Tinkerers pair Raspberry Pis (including the Pi 5) with LCDs to build bespoke frames. A cron job can turn the screen on in the morning and off at night, while split-view layouts place two portrait photos side-by-side on a widescreen display.

For the advanced tinkerer

One showcase featured an “Immich E-Paper Picture Frame” powered by a low-power e-paper display and Lithium-Ion battery. It is more complex but demonstrates the breadth of possibilities, from simple software setups to fully custom hardware.

3. A tour of powerful features: customize your view

ImmichFrame’s continuously growing feature set moves it beyond a basic slideshow, letting you tailor each frame to your space.

• Multi-account support: Combine multiple Immich accounts into one ImmichFrame instance to unify a family’s libraries.
• Advanced content filtering: Pull from specific albums, people, “On this day” memories, favorites, or date ranges. Use the album’s ID (from the URL) for precise filtering.
• Dynamic overlays: Add time, capture date, location (City, State, Country), and live weather data from OpenWeatherMap.
• Visual flair: Apply a subtle pan animation and adjust transition durations to control pacing.
• Flexible layouts: Use split-view to place two portrait images side-by-side and make the most of widescreen displays.

4. More than an app: celebrating the Immich ecosystem

Immich thrives because passionate users build complementary tools, share knowledge, and help each other succeed. ImmichFrame embodies this collaborative spirit.

• Embracing the learning curve: Setting up ImmichFrame involves editing Docker Compose files, managing API keys, and pulling OpenWeatherMap data. The trade-off is granular control and a deeper understanding of your stack.
• Community-powered support: The project maintains a dedicated Discord channel where users and developers troubleshoot together and showcase their creations.
• A rich field of options: Alternatives like ImmichKiosk highlight a healthy, competitive ecosystem. More choice drives better features and sturdier software for everyone.

Conclusion: enjoy the ecosystem, simplify the setup

ImmichFrame showcases the creativity a passionate community brings to Immich. It turns a private photo archive into a living, breathing part of your home and puts your memories where they belong—on display for you and your family.

This ecosystem rests on a stable, well-maintained Immich server. Building and maintaining that server can be rewarding, but it can also be a burden. At PixelUnion, we host a forked version of Immich and handle maintenance, security, and updates so you can jump straight to experimenting with community tools like ImmichFrame. Let us manage the server, so you can manage your memories. Explore PixelUnion’s managed Immich hosting today, and dive into ImmichFrame on GitHub to get started: https://github.com/immichFrame/immichFrame.