Requirements and tiers

A plain NAS can make the whole film. No GPU or hosted AI subscription required. Start with the machine that already runs Immich.

See Can I run this? for platform status, supported Immich versions and untested routes.

Hardware

Allow this in addition to what Immich uses:

Resource	Start here
RAM	4 GiB free for the app; the Compose file limits it to 4 GiB
CPU	2 cores, x86-64 or ARM64; 4 cores make rendering less painful
Disk	25 GB for the persistent data volume, plus the image and finished films
Immich	v2 or v3, reachable from the app, with an API key
Docker	Engine with Compose v2; Docker Desktop also works
Python install	Python 3.11 to 3.13 and FFmpeg; see uv / pip

The 25 GB allows for the default preview and video caches: 10 GB each, plus the store and model files. An SSD helps. Finished films need their own space unless you upload them to Immich.

A 30-minute film fits inside the default 4 GiB container limit on a NAS, with some swap. Your library and output settings still affect memory use. See the measured examples.

A few limits worth knowing before you install:

• Basic output stops at 1080p, even if you request 4K. More RAM alone does not change that.
• The first film takes longer. It prepares the pictures in your chosen period. Later films reuse that work, but still have to render.
• Older Celerons work. Without AVX, titles use the simpler renderer.
• ARM64 Docker uses software encoding. The bundled VA-API drivers are amd64 only.
• A native uv/pip install on Linux ARM64 skips local vocal separation. sphn, a dependency of the demucs extra, ships no wheel there and needs Rust plus a C compiler to build.
• 4K on GPU/Full needs more room. Allow 8 GB for the app, plus memory for any model services.

See performance guidance and platform scope. Ready? Install with Docker Compose, or read the NAS notes.

The three tiers

Leave tier: auto. The app chooses from the inference hardware and model configuration it finds.

auto picks the most your hardware can do. Set tier yourself to pin one.

Tier	What it adds	What you need
Basic	A complete film using metadata, CPU picture classifiers and selection rules	The default install and models fetch
GPU	Image captions, extra document/sensitive-content checks and a family-viewing pre-screen	GPU inference, a caption server and the Laya checkpoint
Full	The GPU features, plus a text model's reading of the period and refinement of the draft	The GPU setup and a configured reader with 32k context

A hardware video encoder or render worker speeds up rendering. It does not enable GPU selection. Choose your setup explains the benefits before you set up extra services.

Which tier you get

auto detects a local CUDA runtime, a Mac's Metal GPU, or an inference service reporting CUDA. With one of those it chooses GPU; an explicitly enabled reader makes that Full. It does not check whether the caption server or Laya files are ready: run preflight after adding services.

A reader on Basic still writes titles and chooses the music mood. Selection stays on Basic. On Apple Silicon, install the all-mac extra for GPU discovery. Captions need their own server; an enabled openai-compatible or ollama reader with blank base_url starts locally when llama-server is installed. Hosted provider presets use their vendor URL instead. The shipped Docker and Kubernetes app images need an external reader.

IMMICH_MEMORIES_DEPLOYMENT_TIER pins the tier, overriding tier: in the file; it accepts basic, gpu or full, not auto. The shipped Compose file and the Kubernetes base manifest both set it to basic, so you need the GPU overlay or component before GPU/Full can resolve. Terraform and the Kubernetes one-shot job leave tier: auto instead. Pinning a tier does not install models or start servers on its own. Forcing tier: full without an enabled reader fails configuration loading, before the UI or preflight can start: configure and enable the reader first, or go back to auto. Changing tier keeps compatible prepared facts and your review decisions.

Check this setup

After installation:

immich-memories preflight
immich-memories capabilities

preflight checks whether a film can run. capabilities reports the resolved tier, services, encoding and memory budget. In Docker, prefix both with docker compose exec immich-memories. More checks: Diagnostics.

Supported and tested

Docker Compose is the primary install. SQLite and PostgreSQL are supported. The app supports Immich v2 and v3 API contracts, x86-64/ARM64 CPU deployments, NVIDIA CUDA inference and native Apple Silicon inference. Hardware and driver combinations still need checking on your machine; Terraform is an example module to adapt to your cluster.

This release candidate does not certify every deployment combination. Use preflight after install and render memory details when planning 4K or a worker.