Immich First-Time Setup Instructions

Initial Deployment

Upon deployment, Immich requires several minutes to fully initialize all services. Please allow adequate time for the complete startup process before attempting to access the application.

Accessing Your Immich Instance

Once the initialization process is complete, access your Immich instance using your server's IP address:

https://use.your.ip

Click Allow / Continue on any security warning while accessing Immich via the IP Address (Follow the Certificate Configuration steps below to avoid this warning.)

System Architecture

Immich is deployed as Docker containers running under the dedicated immich system user. To perform administrative tasks, login and switch to this user account:

ssh root@use.your.ip

su - immich

Configuration Management

Application Directory

The Immich application files are located in the following directory:

cd /home/immich/immich-app/

Environment Configuration

Application settings can be modified through the environment configuration file:

nano /home/immich/immich-app/.env

Applying Configuration Changes

After making changes to the configuration, restart the Immich services to apply the modifications:

cd /home/immich/immich-app/ ; docker compose down ; docker compose pull --policy always --quiet ; docker compose up -d

Process Management Scripts

Additional system scripts and utilities for Immich management are located in:

/opt/immich/

SSL/TLS Certificate Configuration

Automatic Certificate Provisioning

When pointing a domain name to your server's IP address, Caddy will automatically provision and configure SSL certificates through Let's Encrypt.

To enable automatic certificate management:

1. Configure your domain's DNS records to point to your server's IP address
2. Access your Immich instance using your domain:

https://yourdomain.com/

The certificate provisioning process will complete automatically upon first access, refresh the page if this takes more than 60 seconds.