How to "clean" upload folder?

[Gulpman]

I am new to immich and am uploading my pictures (via webbrowser on a PC) to immich via the upload function. I am doing this on Windows 11 and WSL2, as I have a huge number of pics to move (which I am doing step by step ;) ) and want to use the power of my graphics card there. When I am finished with the primary import I want to move the whole docker container + folders to my NAS.

When I first started importing I did not have Storage Templates enabled. I did so after having a look in the libary folder and found out the way my pics are stored there is useless for me as I didn't like the structure. I saw a few issues open here related to Storage Templates but as far as I could catch it this is only related when using the app - which I am not doing at the moment.

Now - after approx. 26000 pics have been uploaded I had a look inside the file structure.

My upload folder is containing 29 files, 25897 folders and takes up 571MB disk space.
I was wondering if:

• this is intended?
• if not (what I hope for ;) ): what would be the best way to remove this massive file structure?
  • can I just delete everything below E:\docker\immich\library\upload via the Windows Explorer?
  • is there a setting within immich which maybe has prevented that all the empty folders are deleted? Which would that be?
  • is there another safe way to get rid of this overhead?

Thank you very much in advance for your help.

Best
Sascha

[popy2k14]

+1
I am also stummbled on that folder during setup an rsync backup job.
Mine contains: 10 files, 50 022 folders, after uploading my complete library back then.

Here is a doc regarding backup: https://immich.app/docs/administration/backup-and-restore/
When i read this correvtly, you just have to backup the /library/ and exclude everything else.

• Can this please be confirmed?
• Can the massive structure be deleted?

I think a better way would be, that immich itself takes care of housekeeping/deleting the folders, when dont needed anymore!?
Should there be an ticket/issue created for this?

[mjessa12]

following because i also came across this - my upload folder is 23gb wondering if i can delete it

[lgrawet]

It depends if you are using storage template or not. The storage template mechanism is now disabled by default for new instances since 1.92.0. This means files uploaded to the server will be stored in the upload folder and not moved to the library folder.

Hardening storage template

We have further hardened the storage template move mechanism to not leave any files in the upload folder behind. Making the job concurrency a fixed number and performing database lock between the move jobs will resolve some outstanding issues and stabilize this core feature.

For new instances, the storage template mechanism is now disabled by default (existing instances won’t be affected). This means files uploaded to the server will be stored in the upload folder and not moved to the library folder. To provide a nice user experience, we added the onboarding feature, as seen below, to inform users that the storage template is disabled by default, and they can enable it before uploading any photos or videos to the instance to avoid confusion.

This is also the continued effort to add support for other storage backends, such as Amazon S3 or Backblaze B2, in the future.

[popy2k14]

@lgrawet sorry i dont get it.
My understanding is, when i upload somthing, immich is using my storage template to sort and name the files accordingly.

So, does they get moved out of the upload folder or not?
If yes, i think i can safely delete the folder structure, right?
I think yes, because mine just have 10 files in it.

A confirmation would be nice :-)

Here is my template:

thx

[lgrawet]

Yes it should as you are using storage template. They had some problem in the past with leftovers though. That's one of the reasons that makes them move out from storage template.

[popy2k14]

Ok, thx for clearing things up.

So when I got you right, on current versions, there should be no leftover folders?

[lgrawet]

Not sure about that sorry. I don't think they are developing templating much further

[popy2k14]

ok, thx. i have cleaned it. We would see... :-)

[tobse91]

I am using the storage template and was wondering why there are a lot of empty folders and like 10 files in the uploaded folder, which, when using the storage template, should only be a temp folder for incoming uploads.
After deleting everything inside of it and uploading a new picture, new folders are created and are being left as empty folders.
Would be cool if immich would auto delete them after using. Otherwise it gets a bit confusing.

[DeltaTango69]

I have also storage template activated. But the files are stored in the library folder. But in the upload folder many subfolders are created, but these folders are all empty. I don't unterstand the sense of this.

[nesalkiN]

Same. Started using Immich a couple of days ago and I use the storage template to move stuff to dirs that make sense.
253 dirs in my library and 20 962 empty dirs in upload.

[mescanne]

My preference would be for the storage template engine to remove empty folders when it moves files, or you can customize the number of folders in uploads created. For example, just a single folder for the first letter of the UUID of the filename would be sufficient for me (so at most 36 folders).