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Three photo albums standing upright against a dark grey background, the middle one dark red and printed PHOTO ALBUM with a small illustrated camper van, the outer two in mottled brown

Featuredclusters.self-hosted2026-08-15

Backing Up Immich (2026): Copying the Photos Folder Is Not a Backup

An Immich backup has two halves: the media files and the PostgreSQL database. Copy only the first and your photos survive while every album, face and shared link disappears. Here is what to save, and how to prove it restores.

4 min readRead the article

A tight row of lever-arch binders on a shelf, five of them grey and one bright red in the middle, their spines carrying hand-written paper labels with months and years.

clusters.self-hosted

2026-08-136 min

Seafile vs Nextcloud (2026): One Keeps Your Files Readable on Disk, the Other Does Not

The comparison usually turns on features and speed. The difference that actually decides it is what sits on your disk: Nextcloud stores your files as files, Seafile splits them into blocks that only Seafile can reassemble.

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A pile of open vintage photo albums on a table, sepia and black-and-white portraits held under paper corners, their card mounts torn and foxed at the edges.

clusters.self-hosted

2026-08-125 min

Immich vs Nextcloud (2026): One Replaces Google Photos, the Other Replaces Google Drive

These two get compared as if they were rivals. They answer different questions: Immich is a photo application, Nextcloud is a file platform that also has a photo app. Which one you need follows from which service you are actually trying to leave.

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Two rack-mounted servers seen close up from the front, their drive bays fitted with caddies, several of them empty

clusters.self-hosted

2026-08-066 min

Immich with Docker Compose: the install is two files, and the part that decides your photos comes after

The official Immich install is two downloads and one command. What matters is what you set before running it: the two locations that hold your photos and your database, one of which cannot live on a network share, and the backup warning the project puts on its own front page.

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