MCP server for intelligent photo management with Immich β€” your self-hosted library, understood.

If your Immich library has grown past what you can manage by hand, immich-photo-manager gives any AI assistant direct access to your instance β€” search, organize, deduplicate, and curate albums through natural conversation. Works with Claude, Gemma, or any MCP-compatible client. Runs locally β€” your photos never leave your server.


What It Does

Say "create albums for all my trips" and watch it work:

GPS coordinates, CLIP visual search, and temporal matching β€” combined in one request to create dozens of curated albums. No scripts, no manual sorting.


Quick Start

Prerequisites

Install as Claude Plugin (recommended)

git clone https://github.com/drolosoft/immich-photo-manager.git
cd immich-photo-manager

claude plugin marketplace add ./
claude plugin install immich-photo-manager
./scripts/setup-mcp.sh

That's it. Ask Claude: "how healthy is my photo library?"

For manual MCP server setup, see Getting Started.

Works in Claude Code

The same plugin runs in Claude Code β€” search your library, curate albums, and generate galleries right from the terminal.

Full conversation transcript: Claude Code demo

Works with Any MCP Client

immich-photo-manager is an MCP server β€” it works with any AI assistant that speaks the Model Context Protocol, not just Claude.

Use the package entry point directly with uvx:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "immich": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["immich-photo-manager"],
      "env": {
        "IMMICH_BASE_URL": "https://your-immich-server.com",
        "IMMICH_API_KEY": "your-api-key"
      }
    }
  }
}

immich-photo-manager defaults to MCP stdio transport. Set MCP_TRANSPORT=http when you want to run the server as a Streamable HTTP service.

============================================================
IMMICH-PHOTO-MANAGER Γ— GEMMA 4 (LM STUDIO)
============================================================

Immich: https://your-immich-server.com
Model:  gemma4-26b-it (local, LM Studio)
Query:  "Show me my Lanzarote albums"

1. Getting MCP tool schemas...
   50 MCP tools available

2. Asking Gemma 4...
   Gemma 4 chose: list_albums({})

3. Executing 'list_albums' against Immich...
   Found 124 total albums, 14 Lanzarote albums:
     - Lanzarote Amarillo (26 photos)
     - Lanzarote Rojo (201 photos)
     - Lanzarote Azul (187 photos)
     - Lanzarote MarrΓ³n (208 photos)
     - Lanzarote Negro (193 photos)
     - Lanzarote Verde (201 photos)
     - Lanzarote Gasolina (174 photos)
     ...

4. Gemma 4 interpreting results...
   "I found 14 Lanzarote albums β€” 7 color-themed with
    1,190 photos and 7 location-specific albums."

RESULT: Zero cloud dependency β€” fully self-hosted stack.
Client Status
Claude Code Tested
Claude Desktop Tested
LM Studio (Gemma 4) Tested
Cursor, Windsurf, VS Code, Cline, Zed Compatible (MCP stdio)

Full transcript: Gemma 4 demo Β· Test script: test-lmstudio-mcp.py


Highlights

  • AI-powered search β€” natural language photo search via CLIP ("sunset at the beach", "birthday cake")
  • Geographic albums β€” create albums organized by place, combining GPS + CLIP + temporal matching
  • Metadata repair β€” fix noon/midnight timestamps, infer missing GPS from neighboring photos, correct timezone offsets
  • Library cleanup β€” detect screenshots, duplicates, and low-quality images with multi-signal analysis
  • Duplicate detection β€” cross-source analysis using perceptual hashing (finds re-encoded copies across Apple Photos, Google Photos, and other imports)
  • Bulk rotation β€” rotate entire albums or selections at once (90Β°/180Β°/270Β°); non-destructive, accumulates across calls, one-click revert
  • People & face management β€” list, search, merge, and organize recognized people; reassign misidentified faces; view face thumbnails
  • Trash & asset lifecycle β€” safely delete assets to trash, permanently remove, restore from trash; complete asset lifecycle management
  • Library health β€” one command for asset inventory, metadata quality, storage breakdown, and recommendations
  • Tags & organization β€” create, apply, and manage tags across your library; bulk tag and untag assets
  • Interactive galleries β€” self-contained HTML pages with embedded thumbnails, 3 themes, 4 view modes, and a Cowork Actions Panel for batch operations

Select photos in the gallery, click an action, and paste the command into Claude. See Skills Reference for all 12 skills.


Why immich-photo-manager?

Immich is excellent at storing and viewing your photos. But managing a large library β€” deduplication, metadata repair, album curation, storage analysis β€” still requires manual effort or custom scripts.

Manual / scripts immich-photo-manager
πŸ” Write API calls, parse JSON Natural language β€” "find my sunset photos from Italy"
πŸ—ΊοΈ Export GPS, cluster manually Geographic albums β€” automatic GPS + CLIP + temporal matching
🧹 Hash files, diff checksums Perceptual hashing β€” finds re-encoded duplicates across import sources
πŸ”§ Edit EXIF one file at a time Metadata repair β€” batch-fix timestamps, infer GPS, correct timezones
πŸ“Š Query database, build reports Library health β€” one command for metadata quality, storage, recommendations
πŸ”„ Rotate one photo at a time Bulk rotation β€” rotate entire albums at once, non-destructive
🏷️ No tag management in UI Tags β€” create, bulk apply/remove across assets
πŸ›‘οΈ Manual review of every action Safety first β€” shows findings, asks before acting

Documentation

Document Description
Getting Started Installation, manual MCP setup, deployment options, and troubleshooting
Skills Reference All 12 skills β€” workflows, triggers, parameters, output formats
MCP Tools Reference All 50 MCP tools β€” parameters, return types, examples
Architecture How base64-embedded thumbnails solve the Cowork sandbox restriction
CORS Setup Guide Optional β€” enable direct URL thumbnail loading for browser-viewed galleries

πŸ¦™ Glama Score


Contributing

Contributions are welcome β€” bug fixes, new skills, feature ideas. Open an issue or submit a PR.

If immich-photo-manager helps manage your library, consider giving it a star on GitHub β€” it helps others discover the project.


Support

If immich-photo-manager saved you time or made your photo library easier to manage, consider buying me a coffee β€” it keeps the next one coming!


License

MIT License β€” free to use, modify, and distribute.

Forged by Drolosoft Β· Tools we wish existed