FAQ

Imora is a native iOS client for Immich, the self-hosted photo and video platform. It is written entirely in Swift and SwiftUI for iOS 26, and covers the timeline, search, albums, sharing, the map, notifications and backups. Imora is an app, not a service - it stores nothing in the cloud and does nothing without a server of your own.

An iPhone running iOS 26 or newer, and an Immich server exposing the v2 or v3 API. If you do not have a server yet, start with the server requirements and the official quick start guide.

Imora currently ships as source code: clone the repository and build it with Xcode 27 or newer. Keep an eye on the repository for distribution news.

No. Imora is an independent project and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Immich team or FUTO. For anything about the server itself, the official Immich FAQ is the right place.

Enter your server address first - a bare domain is enough when your server publishes the standard /.well-known/immich pointer, and Imora resolves the rest. Then sign in with your email and password, or with OAuth if your instance has it configured.

Yes. Albums can be shared with other users on your server, with invites, activity and the option to leave. Public shared links can be created, edited and deleted from Imora, including passwords, custom URLs and expiry dates. The concepts behind all of this are described in the Immich sharing docs.

The "x years ago" carousel above the timeline is assembled by your server from your own library. Imora just makes it look at home on iOS.

Start a backup and Imora hands it to the system: it keeps running after you leave the app, shows live progress in the Dynamic Island and on the Lock Screen, and gives you the system's own cancel button. Every upload travels over a background session, so a transfer already handed off finishes even if the app is suspended or killed - and a checksum pass guarantees nothing is ever uploaded twice.

Backups are something you start - Imora does not run a silent daemon. While the app is open, changes to your library are picked up and uploaded, and anything already handed to the system finishes on its own. iOS decides how much background time apps get, so the reliable mental model is: open the app, start the backup, walk away.

Only when you explicitly ask it to remove device copies of photos that are already safely on your server. Nothing is deleted as a side effect - browsing, searching and backing up never touch your local library.

On your Immich server only. Imora keeps only a bounded thumbnail cache on the device. You can download your photos on device if you want though.

No, plain HTTP is allowed so that servers on a home network work out of the box. For anything that crosses the internet you should still use HTTPS; the reverse proxy docs show how to put Immich behind TLS properly.

Immich has no push notification transport - events arrive on the same realtime socket the timeline uses. Imora raises them as local banners while it runs and replays anything missed the next time you open the app. Per-type switches let you choose what is worth a banner, and the server's own email notifications can be managed from settings too.

The thumbnail cache is capped at 1 GiB and evicts itself. Files shared through are staged briefly until their upload completes. You can delete the cache in storage settings.