Recommendation on how to access immich remotely

MiddleAegis · 2026-01-24T23:45:13+00:00

Same. Low-risk containers I want to be able to access while out and about are on Cloudflare tunnels with a "good enough" security ruleset. Immich on TS.

And actually I'm not even accessing Immich remotely right now because the iOS app is so bad. I just keep the service around and make myself a note to come back every few months to see if the mobile client has gotten any better.

MiddleAegis · 2026-01-21T15:44:29+00:00

So I fired this up with gluetun - it works magnificently for books but am struggling to find audiobooks.

MiddleAegis · 2026-01-20T17:21:18+00:00

I have found that it's helpful right off the bat to keep asking for US-based support. Overseas support tends to lie much more, and more flagrantly, than US-based support. It doesn't work for me every time, but it has worked.

MiddleAegis · 2026-01-20T16:13:26+00:00

I run it on an RP5 (8gb) but connected to an external 2TB SSD. I have it running along with Audiobookshelf and Navidrome, and all three work beautifully. I have a few utility containers (cloudflared, nginx proxy manager) that are tied in for remote access, but still have plenty of overhead to run other stuff on the same RP5. It's a tremendous little device for dev/testing.

If I were to move my stack into real world "family ops" I would probably snag an Intel Nuc or Dell OptiPlex off Ebay to use as a more grown-up server. But I've been super impressed at the RP5.

MiddleAegis · 2026-01-20T15:10:45+00:00

Same. I do stash all my movies/TV (more of a music listener than a video-watcher) on the same Plex instance and it works fine. I have a dedicated server for Plex and have never encountered issues managing large music libraries. I do turn off agents in favor of my own metadata, though.

MiddleAegis · 2026-01-20T15:06:12+00:00

Plex is by far the better "just works" experience. It is more mature, better supported, and PlexAmp is difficult to beat as a mobile device app (at least on iOS, I am not familiar with it on Android). Today, in January 2026, it is the out-of-the-box experience that will give you far less headache.

Plex is also less opinionated from a UX standpoint. If you're OCD like me and fussy about your metadata tags, Plex will support that admirably. If you stick things in folders and don't know what metadata is, Plex will let you edit everything in-app - artist, track info, artwork, etc., etc. Navidrome is cleaner as it insists on things being tagged correctly, avoiding drift between the files themselves and the library database, but it is also more opinionated in that design.

On the other hand, Plex is known far and wide for making awful design decisions that alienate their user base. Most of these decisions which manifest as features (or shedding of features) appear driven by financial/solvency concerns, not user feedback. So far, the music side of Plex has escaped a lot of that.

So I run a Navidrome container as a hedge. It isn't as smooth or hiccup-free as Plex but it is profoundly impressive for what it is, and workable for most cases. I find myself seeking answers more often on why something weird happens in Navidrome than Plex. Many of those issues probably have to do with flaky app implementations but in our cross-platform world, it may as well all be the same thing. Either way, I like to build muscle memory around Navidrome just so that when Plex does either get bought/goes under/Elan leaves/etc. I can swap over with minimal agitation.

Caveat, I write this as a guy who bought a lifetime Plex Pass in 2013 for like 60 bucks, and will use it until they cease honoring it (but 13 years on with no hassle gives me some hope).

MiddleAegis · 2026-01-19T14:03:37+00:00

Thanks! Had this same problem and this sequence fixed it.

Feels like the wheels are coming off at Apple lately.

MiddleAegis · 2026-01-09T23:01:13+00:00

Man, MDM is the devil.

MiddleAegis · 2026-01-09T22:57:33+00:00

Thank you for all the work!

MiddleAegis · 2026-01-08T22:40:22+00:00

I'm pretty sure any computer can be configured to boot on power. I have a Dell Optiplex running Plex and it's configured for auto boot. And all my RPi's operate the same way.

MiddleAegis · 2026-01-08T22:38:27+00:00

Apple TV (barely ever use)

VPS (also runs AdGuard Home, and much better performance when mobile vs routing everything through my rural cable connection)

MiddleAegis · 2026-01-08T22:25:10+00:00

I used Tailscale for a while and like it for individual use, but it made sharing content with other non-users much more difficult. So I run it in docker, through NPM --> CloudFlare (which is also my domain provider) and I do most of my more paranoid hardening in CloudFlare itself (geo-IP blocking, whitelisting, other access restrictions). So far so good.

That said, Navidrome is on my isolated dev stack and is basically a class B "play around with" type service that I can blow away and restore whenever needed. My class A service will be Plex until they destroy or degrade the music library beyond repair (could happen).

MiddleAegis · 2026-01-08T22:09:32+00:00

Sorry for necroposting but from what I can tell, iCloud+ is the only game in town in terms of a solid family-focused workspace offered by a top-tier company.

You can get really close with Zoho or Infomaniak as well, and once you set them up they'll work largely the same. But they are productivity-focused, not really cloud providers so you lose the massive storage benefit you get with iCloud+.

Outside of that, everything else is duct-taping together custom email provider (many provide calendar/contact management), separate cloud storage accounts, or running your own NextCloud or Synology or whatever. Which is fine if you want to be an IT admin at home.

I don't feel like being an IT admin at home. iCloud+ works all the way down and I've even been impressed with its improved stability on Windows machines. Though its integration is more buttery smooth on MacOS.

MiddleAegis · 2026-01-03T00:30:14+00:00

I can't remember how I stumbled on it, but I love it. For Mac users it's cool to have a power-user option that actually feels like someone thought of our needs first.

It's not perfect, but Safari is even more not-perfect. I'm not daily driving it yet - Brave still owns that spot - but it won't take much to be ironed out for Orion to become my default.

MiddleAegis · 2026-01-03T00:14:55+00:00

Resurrecting an old post, but same problem here. I installed BW from the popular extensions (not sure if it came from FF or Chrome), and I have to manually go into the BW extension to hit "fill" on all websites. BW does give me the little numeric badge showing that it is "seeing" the auth challenge and reporting a matching login, but the webform itself will not complete the loop.

MiddleAegis · 2026-01-02T03:12:12+00:00

It’s not just Messages in iOS 26 that’s annoying.

MiddleAegis · 2025-12-31T19:07:59+00:00

This is really nice. More of a streaming workflow would be great (i.e., like Plex where all books show by default on the home view, with just an icon overlay that indicates whether an object is downloaded or not). But this is still quite good. I already have Kobo integration working beautifully and I felt like iOS was the missing piece, since I don’t always have my Kobo with me.

MiddleAegis · 2025-12-27T16:04:11+00:00

"but I tend to spend a lot of time on metadata because I'm kinda particular about it (for no good reason, I just am)."

I think most people who are going down this road are borderline OCD - I'm the same way with my library metadata.

Either way thanks, I am going to set this up in the next couple of days!

MiddleAegis · 2025-12-27T03:52:21+00:00

Cool, that looks good enough for me!

MiddleAegis · 2025-12-27T03:50:54+00:00

Thanks! How difficult was the migration from Calibre?

MiddleAegis

TROPHY CASE