Photos and media
Photo libraries, film shelves, and the servers that stream them.
The two heavyweights here are photo libraries and media servers, and both push a home server harder than almost anything else you will ask it to do. A photo library wants machine learning for search and faces, which is expensive to run well. A media server wants to stream to every screen in the house without turning into a slideshow. Getting either one right is mostly about knowing which trade-off you are buying.
The desk’s coverage starts with the libraries, moves through the servers that stream, and ends with the smaller shelves: books, downloads, and the requests in between.
Immich 3.2 rebuilds search and recognises people across accounts. The flagship photo library: rebuilt search with interpretation modes, and the first pass at faces across accounts. Start here for photos.
Immich v3.3.0-rc.1 makes people shareable and adds birthday memories. The next step, still a release candidate. Read the limits before you move a library onto it.
PhotoPrism’s October release puts every AI model on the GPU. The other big library, and the one that leans hardest into local AI. A second look at photos, or a GPU put to work.
Jellyfin 12.0: modern on the surface, rebuilt underneath, with 12.2 now the maintenance release to actually install. The media server’s big rebuild, and where that line stands today.
Seerr v3.5.0. The unified request manager for Jellyfin, Plex and Emby: when the household asks you for films, this is how they ask the server instead.
MeTube 2026.09.27 adds per-download video passwords. For the downloads pile: private links per video, and a cancel button that actually stops the job.
BookOrbit is a self-hosted library for ebooks, comics and audiobooks. For when the reading list outgrows an e-reader, and a shelf that handles all three formats.
Calibre-Web-Automated v4.0.7 fixes four access-control holes. The other book route: four access-control fixes and a much faster Kobo sync.