Immich 3.4.0 brings tags to the mobile apps, two years after their web launch
On November 10, 2026 Immich shipped version 3.4.0, finally bringing tags — launched in August 2024 but confined to the web — to the mobile apps, alongside JPEG XL and passkeys. If you organized your library with tags, mobile parity is here; upgrade and set MACHINE_LEARNING_MODEL_REVISION=v2 to reclaim the ML container’s memory win.
November 10, 2026. Immich ships version 3.4.0. August 2024. That is when tags first appeared, in v1.113.0, as a flexible alternative to albums — but confined to the web, a limit tucked into the changelog. Two years. That is how long it took for the feature to reach the mobile apps, through PR #30753. Why it matters: a share of self-hosters converted their entire library to tags without noticing the mobile limit, and ended up with an organization they could not use on a phone.
The 2024 tags misunderstanding
When Immich introduced tags in August 2024, the pitch was clear: a flexible alternative to albums that avoids duplicating one photo across several albums. The v1.113.0 changelog did warn that the feature was web-only. Ethan Sholly, who runs the Self-Host Weekly newsletter, recounts reading that too late — after converting his whole collection — and having “harassed” the team about it ever since.
The scenario is common. On the web, tags behave like multi-dimensional labels: a holiday photo can carry beach, family, and 2025 at once, none of them exclusive. On mobile that organization simply did not exist, and the user fell back to a flat timeline. Going back to albums means reclassifying — or accepting that a photo appears in only one place.
What 3.4.0 actually changes
3.4.0 is the stable release published on November 10, 2026, after a run of release candidates in October and November. The long-awaited piece is feat(mobile): mobile tags, contributed by staticdog. It lands on both Android and iOS — via TestFlight for pre-release builds, then the App Store for the stable one.
The release carries other mobile work that rounds out web parity:
- JPEG XL support (
jxl decoder) on mobile — a compression format the Immich web already handled, shrinking originals without visible loss. - Passkeys on mobile, landed in
rc.3, for passwordless authentication. - Smooth timeline scrubbing, plus display, sorting, and zoom fixes.
Under the hood, Immich asks users to set MACHINE_LEARNING_MODEL_REVISION=v2 to take the memory and performance gains in the machine learning container. That is the positive counterpart to a less flattering episode the same week: the discovery that a dependency in the ML container enabled Microsoft telemetry by default, neutralized with ORT_DISABLE_TELEMETRY=1 — a story we covered in our analysis of the ONNX runtime.
Tags or albums: the real architecture choice
Mobile parity reopens a question many had settled by default. Albums are exclusive and visual — one album, one browsing intent. Tags are non-exclusive and programmatic — they serve human organization as well as automation (a script can tag everything coming from a given device).
The rule of thumb emerging from the community fits in one line: albums for the human browse, tags for the query. Do not delete an album in favor of a tag until you have confirmed that search and automation rules — context search, tag filters — actually cover the need. 3.4.0 does not force the migration; it simply removes the argument that was blocking it, namely the lack of mobile viewing.
What to check before upgrading
Immich moves fast, and every major release deserves a look at the underlying changes. For 3.4.0:
- The ML container. Flip
MACHINE_LEARNING_MODEL_REVISION=v2for the memory win, and confirm telemetry is off if you had disabledORT_DISABLE_TELEMETRY. - Backups. The release carries FUTO Backups integration improvements; test a restore before calling the upgrade done.
- Security fixes. The changelog mentions “a plethora of security fixes”; read the full notes before deploying an exposed instance.
As always with Immich, the golden rule is a backup of the database and originals before any version bump — the project is fast-moving and offers no guaranteed downgrade path.
Verdict
If you organized your library with tags — or were hesitating to start — move to Immich 3.4.0: mobile tag viewing removes the last obstacle to that organization, and you pick up JPEG XL and passkeys along the way. Keep albums for explicit browsing paths, and use tags for querying and automation. If you held back on an older version because of the ONNX telemetry episode, this release is the right moment to catch up — after confirming ORT_DISABLE_TELEMETRY=1 and enabling MACHINE_LEARNING_MODEL_REVISION=v2.