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FAQ

Does it modify my Immich library?

By default, no. It downloads copies of your videos for analysis and processing. If you enable --upload-to-immich, the generated compilation video is uploaded as a new asset (optionally into an album). Your original videos are never modified or deleted.

What video formats does it support?

Anything FFmpeg can decode, which is basically everything: MP4, MOV, AVI, MKV, WebM, you name it. Output supports mp4 and mov containers with h264, h265, or ProRes codecs.

Can I use it without face recognition?

Yes. Skip the --person flag and it'll pull all videos from the selected time period. Face recognition just narrows the selection to videos containing a specific person.

How long does analysis take?

Depends on your library size and hardware. Rough numbers:

  • CPU only: ~1-2 minutes per video
  • GPU analysis enabled: ~15-30 seconds per video
  • With downscaling to 480p: roughly half the above

Results are cached, so you only pay this cost once per video.

Can I run it headless?

Yes. The CLI works without a display. Use immich-memories generate with flags instead of immich-memories ui. Works fine over SSH, in Docker containers, and in CI pipelines.

Is it safe for production?

The codebase is AI-written (on purpose, as an experiment) with 1,000+ tests and strict quality gates. The output (music, clip selection, mood analysis) is AI-generated too, so results vary. Review what it produces before showing it at grandma's birthday party.

Can I generate for multiple people at once?

Yes. Use --person "Alice" --person "Bob" with --memory-type multi_person. By default it finds videos where both people appear together. See the generate CLI docs for all memory type options.

How much disk space does it need?

The tool downloads videos temporarily for analysis. A rough estimate: 2x the total size of your source videos (original downloads + processed clips). The temporary files are cleaned up after generation. The final output video is typically 50-200MB for a 5-10 minute 1080p video.

Can it use iPhone Live Photos?

Yes. Live Photos are included by default (analysis.include_live_photos: true). Live Photos are ~3 second video clips captured with every iPhone photo. When you took photos in rapid succession, the tool detects overlapping clips and merges them into longer continuous moments: transitions happen at each shutter press. A burst of 5 Live Photos becomes one ~8 second clip.

Tested on iPhones. Samsung and Google Pixel motion photos should work (Immich normalizes them to the same field), but I only use iOS so it hasn't been tested firsthand. PRs from Android users welcome.

How big should my PRs be?

Under 200-300 lines of diff. Smaller PRs get reviewed faster and catch bugs earlier. If your change is bigger, split it into focused chunks. See CONTRIBUTING.md for the full guidelines.

Does it work on Apple Silicon?

Yes. VideoToolbox hardware acceleration is auto-detected. For music generation, ACE-Step works via MLX on Apple Silicon. For mood detection LLM, mlx-vlm is the recommended server.