immich/docs/docs/features/command-line-interface.md

The Immich CLI

Immich has a CLI that allows you to perform certain actions from the command line. This CLI replaces the legacy CLI that was previously available. The CLI is hosted in the cli folder of the the main Immich github repository.

Features

• Upload photos and videos to Immich
• Check server version

More features are planned for the future.

:::tip Google Photos Takeout If you are looking to import your Google Photos takeout, we recommed this community maintained tool immich-go :::

Requirements

• Node.js 18 or above
• Npm

Installation

npm i -g @immich/cli

NOTE: if you previously installed the legacy CLI, you will need to uninstall it first:

npm uninstall -g immich

Usage

immich

Usage: immich [options] [command]

Immich command line interface

Options:
  -h, --help                        display help for command

Commands:
  upload [options] [paths...]       Upload assets
  server-info                       Display server information
  login-key [instanceUrl] [apiKey]  Login using an API key
  logout                            Remove stored credentials
  help [command]                    display help for command

Commands

The upload command supports the following options:

Usage: immich upload [options] [paths...]

Upload assets

Arguments:
  paths                    One or more paths to assets to be uploaded

Options:
  -r, --recursive          Recursive (default: false, env: IMMICH_RECURSIVE)
  -i, --ignore [paths...]  Paths to ignore (env: IMMICH_IGNORE_PATHS)
  -h, --skip-hash          Don't hash files before upload (default: false, env: IMMICH_SKIP_HASH)
  -a, --album              Automatically create albums based on folder name (default: false, env: IMMICH_AUTO_CREATE_ALBUM)
  -n, --dry-run            Don't perform any actions, just show what will be done (default: false, env: IMMICH_DRY_RUN)
  --delete                 Delete local assets after upload (env: IMMICH_DELETE_ASSETS)
  --help                   display help for command

Note that the above options can read from environment variables as well.

Quick Start

You begin by authenticating to your Immich server.

immich login-key [instanceUrl] [apiKey]

For instance,

immich login-key http://192.168.1.216:2283/api HFEJ38DNSDUEG

This will store your credentials in a file in your home directory. Please keep the file secure, either by performing the logout command after you are done, or deleting it manually.

Once you are authenticated, you can upload assets to your Immich server.

immich upload file1.jpg file2.jpg

By default, subfolders are not included. To upload a directory including subfolder, use the --recursive option:

immich upload --recursive directory/

If you are unsure what will happen, you can use the --dry-run option to see what would happen without actually performing any actions.

immich upload --dry-run --recursive directory/

By default, the upload command will hash the files before uploading them. This is to avoid uploading the same file multiple times. If you are sure that the files are unique, you can skip this step by passing the --skip-hash option. Note that Immich always performs its own deduplication through hashing, so this is merely a performance consideration. If you have good bandwidth it might be faster to skip hashing.

immich upload --skip-hash --recursive directory/

You can automatically create albums based on the folder name by passing the --album option. This will automatically create albums for each uploaded asset based on the name of the folder they are in.

immich upload --album --recursive directory/

It is possible to skip assets matching a glob pattern by passing the --ignore option. See the library documentation on how to use glob patterns. You can add several exclusion patterns if needed.

immich upload --ignore **/Raw/** --recursive directory/

immich upload --ignore **/Raw/** **/*.tif --recursive directory/

Obtain the API Key

The API key can be obtained in the user setting panel on the web interface.