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# Requirements

Hardware and software requirements for Immich:

## Hardware

- **OS**: Recommended Linux or \*nix operating system (Ubuntu, Debian, etc).
  - Non-Linux OSes tend to provide a poor Docker experience and are strongly discouraged.
    Our ability to assist with setup or troubleshooting on non-Linux OSes will be severely reduced.
    If you still want to try to use a non-Linux OS, you can set it up as follows:
    - Windows: [Docker Desktop on Windows](https://docs.docker.com/desktop/install/windows-install/) or [WSL 2](https://docs.docker.com/desktop/wsl/).
    - macOS: [Docker Desktop on Mac](https://docs.docker.com/desktop/install/mac-install/).
  - Immich runs well in a virtualized environment when running in a full virtual machine.
    The use of Docker in LXC containers is [not recommended](https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Linux_Container), but may be possible for advanced users.
    If you have issues, we recommend that you switch to a supported VM deployment.
- **RAM**: Minimum 4GB, recommended 6GB.
- **CPU**: Minimum 2 cores, recommended 4 cores.
- **Storage**: Recommended Unix-compatible filesystem (EXT4, ZFS, APFS, etc.) with support for user/group ownership and permissions.
  - The generation of thumbnails and transcoded video can increase the size of the photo library by 10-20% on average.

:::tip
Good performance and a stable connection to the Postgres database is critical to a smooth Immich experience.
The Postgres database files are typically between 1-3 GB in size.
For this reason, the Postgres database (`DB_DATA_LOCATION`) should ideally use local SSD storage, and never a network share of any kind.
Additionally, if Docker resource limits are used, the Postgres database requires at least 2GB of RAM.
Windows users may run into issues with non-Unix-compatible filesystems, see below for more details.
:::

## Software

Immich requires [**Docker**](https://docs.docker.com/get-started/get-docker/) with the **Docker Compose plugin**:

- **Docker Engine**: This CLI variant is designed for Linux servers (or Windows via WSL2).
- **Docker Desktop**: This GUI variant is **not recommended** for Linux, but is available for Windows or macOS.

The Compose plugin will be installed by both Docker Engine and Desktop by following the linked installation guides; it can also be [separately installed](https://docs.docker.com/compose/install/).

:::note
Immich requires the command `docker compose`; the similarly named `docker-compose` is [deprecated](https://docs.docker.com/compose/migrate/) and is no longer supported by Immich.
:::

### Special requirements for Windows users

<details>
<summary>Database storage on Windows systems</summary>

The Immich Postgres database (`DB_DATA_LOCATION`) must be located on a filesystem that supports user/group
ownership and permissions (EXT2/3/4, ZFS, APFS, BTRFS, XFS, etc.). It will not work on any filesystem formatted in NTFS or ex/FAT/32.
It will not work in WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) when using a mounted host directory (commonly under `/mnt`).
If this is an issue, you can change the bind mount to a Docker volume instead as follows:

Make the following change to `.env`:

```diff
- DB_DATA_LOCATION=./postgres
+ DB_DATA_LOCATION=pgdata
```

Add the following line to the bottom of `docker-compose.yml`:

```diff
volumes:
  model-cache:
+ pgdata:
```

</details>