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Prepare the library

Read a period's pictures ahead of time so later films can reuse the results. prepare makes no cut and renders no film. You do not need it before an ordinary film: generate prepares the pictures it needs itself.

Read a month or year​

immich-memories prepare --year 2025 --month 6
immich-memories prepare --year 2025

In Docker, prefix commands with docker compose exec immich-memories. Run immich-memories models fetch once before the first preparation.

A whole year is useful overnight on a NAS. Scope can also be an explicit start/end or start/period, using the same date options as generate.

Resume and reuse​

Rerunning resumes missing work. Later cuts reuse compatible facts; a changed producer may need to refresh its own facts. Changing home coordinates or people roles does not invalidate picture facts.

Exit 0 means preparation completed for the scope. Exit 1 means some facts are missing; the output names the producer and the count. On a captioned setup, check the caption service before rerunning.

Database and fact versions explains refresh and migration contracts.

Measure the cost​

The output lists each producer's elapsed time and rate per picture, then projects the measured rate across a library size. This tells you whether CPU inference is the part worth moving to a GPU service.

Optional text summaries​

--overviews requires a configured model reader; the rules reader cannot write summaries. With the reader service ready:

immich-memories prepare --year 2025 --overviews

This banks episode/month summaries after all picture facts in the scope are complete. An incomplete preparation exits 1 and skips summaries, even with --overviews; fix the missing producer and rerun the same command. It is optional; a model cut can produce missing summaries itself. What a model adds.

Other library tasks​

Every preparation flag: CLI reference.