A film from a sentence
Type something like "at the park with kids" or "our cat through the years" and the app tries to turn it into a film.
This was tuned on one real library and tried on a handful of test households. It can and will get your request wrong on yours. Preview the scope and the pictures before trusting the result.
Before you try it
You need the Full tier: GPU picture preparation, a caption service and a configured text reader. Run immich-memories models fetch to install the pinned WordNet dictionary.
A text reader by itself on the Basic tier is enough for titles, but not for this feature.
It prepares the period it asks about
A caption-only subject ("our cat", "my knitting") reads captions, and a library nobody has run
prepare on has none yet. Rather than answer "not possible" on pictures nobody has looked at, a
request checks its own period first: the dates it parsed, or the whole library for "along the
years". A person film or a computed selection (a trip, someone's first or last picture) reads
faces and GPS, never a caption, so it is never affected by this.
Preview first, on the CLI or in the web UI: a preview only checks and warns, it never prepares anything. Make the film stays on even when the window needs preparing; that button is what pays the cost.
immich-memories generate --ask "our cat along the years" --dry-run
1,234 pictures in this period aren't prepared yet; preparing them first takes about 8 min
Making the film says the same thing, then prepares:
immich-memories generate --ask "our cat along the years" --no-render
1,234 pictures in this period aren't prepared yet; preparing them first takes about 8 min
Preparing 1,234 pictures over 1 window
...
A second request over the same period prepares nothing new: the captions are already banked,
the same way immich-memories prepare banks them. It still checks the window first, though,
which on a large library can itself take a couple of minutes (Immich's own search, not a
model). The web client shows the same warning in its preview, before it starts.
Preview, then make the film
In the web UI, use Describe the film you want on Memory and inspect the preview. Read the translated people, dates, places and subject. Check the pool: a plausible sentence does not guarantee the right pictures. The preview's verdict is one of four: possible (enough pictures, the film is made), thin (fewer, a short film is made and the run says why), not possible (the pool is empty) or needs preparation (the window above). When it looks right:
immich-memories generate --ask "our cat along the years" --no-render
This saves an actual cut for review. Render it from Runs, or use runs render.
How it works
The sentence becomes filters over facts and captions already prepared from your library. Those filters build a pool; the normal editor chooses shots from it. An empty pool makes no film.
The pool only holds pictures the run's accounts can see. In a household setup, a plain ask reads your primary account only. Add --accounts primary,partner, or select both accounts in the web UI, to search both libraries.
The title comes from a model that reads your request as the occasion, written in the film's configured language (titles and languages); that is not necessarily the language you typed the sentence in, and it is never the raw sentence itself. With no model, or one that refuses, the title falls back to the dated template.
Leaving things out
"No", "without" and their equivalent in your language exclude rather than require: "landscapes, no humans" drops any picture with a face or a person in its caption, "sans les enfants" drops children without requiring them. The word after a negation can take its case form: "без публики" and "bez publiczności" both leave the audience out. A named person works the same way: "without Alex" drops Alex's own pictures. Mix a request freely: "with the kids, no rain" keeps the kids filter and drops nothing about rain, since each clause of your sentence is read on its own.
"Only" narrows a company word to the kind you named: "only the performers" keeps musicians, singers, dancers and the rest of that cast, and drops shots of the audience alone. A stage shot with the crowd in it is still a performer shot, so it stays. The exclusion travels with the film all the way to the final cut, so a picture that slipped past the pool filter still gets caught and reported.
The sentence supplies the scope, so do not combine --ask with --year, --person or an album scope. For a predictable date or person film, use the normal film chooser.
When a result is bad
Wrong-picture and missing-subject feedback is CLI-only: immich-memories report RUN_ID --wrong ASSET_ID --missing "the red bike". Create a report and read its preview before sharing it. Reports do not include pictures; flagged captions are opt-in.
The sentence parser reference has the translation trace, voting, WordNet matching, pool rules and known limits. Privacy lists what the caption service and reader receive.