Immich 3.2 ships cross-user facial recognition and a rewritten search API
The self-hosted photo library Immich released 3.2.0 on September 10 with a new Search API v2, a revamped search UI, and cluster groups that share facial recognition across trusted users. The feature forces a facial-recognition reset, worth weighing before migrating.
September 10, 2026. Immich, the self-hosted alternative to Google Photos, publishes version 3.2.0. Two efforts dominate the release: a fully rewritten Search API v2 on the server, and cluster groups, which recognize faces across photos shared between trusted users. The latter carries a condition that is rare in the self-hosted ecosystem: you must reset facial recognition for a whole group to benefit from it. A decision worth making deliberately.
A search engine that becomes a platform API
The search rework is the most structural part. Immich built a Search API v2 that, for the first time, can search within an album and combine multiple filters with AND and OR operators.
This is a change of nature, not of scale. Until now, search was a feature of the interface. With v2, it becomes a programmable surface: some of these capabilities will power the future UI, others will serve the third-party tools that integrate with Immich. The project points to pull request #30179 and its API documentation for concrete examples. For anyone scripting their instance — backups, curation, synchronization — this is the missing building block for automating photo organization.
The web UI follows with a revamped search modal, simpler, with advanced filters for camera make, model, lens, favorite or archive status, and album membership.
Cluster groups: facial recognition across accounts
The boldest piece lies elsewhere. Until 3.2.0, Immich’s facial recognition was strictly per user: every account had its own model, and faces detected in shared photos were never matched across accounts.
Cluster groups change that. A user can invite trusted accounts into their group, or join an existing one. The result: faces are recognized across the assets shared by members of the same group. Clustering operates on a larger pool of faces, which, the project notes, also improves accuracy.
The boundary is clear and documented: names and birth dates remain per user and are not yet shared within the group. That is a deliberate privacy boundary — detection is shared, the identity each person assigns is not.
The friction point is technical. Enabling cluster groups forces a reset of facial recognition for all group members, in order to apply the change retroactively. Concretely: names and birth dates are lost, and results can differ slightly from what you had. Only machine-learning-recognized faces are affected — the project notes that non-destructive merging is envisioned but not available yet.
What to do before migrating
- Back up before upgrading. 3.2.0 is a major release; Immich’s notes recommend a database backup before any version bump. The search-API change and clustering touch indexed data — rolling back is not trivial.
- Do not click “join a group” lightly. The facial-recognition reset wipes the names and birth dates you painstakingly assigned. If you are alone on your instance, it buys you nothing; if you are a couple or a family, weigh the gain (faces matched across accounts) against the loss (complete re-labeling).
- Use search v2 without touching groups. The search rework and the dedicated memories page — which lets you revisit and favorite memories so they are never deleted — activate without any reset. That is the immediate gain of 3.2.0.
The memories page deserves a mention: it separates memories from the main feed and lets you pin them as favorites, so they are never auto-deleted. It is the first time Immich gives the user durable control over that surface.
Verdict
If you run Immich solo, install 3.2.0 without hesitation: search v2, the revamped UI, and the memories page are net gains, and cluster groups do not concern you.
If your instance is shared (couple, family, small collective), adopt 3.2.0 for search, but defer enabling cluster groups until you have accepted the facial-recognition reset — or first record the names you assigned, because they will be lost. If you integrate Immich with other tools, start targeting the Search API v2 now: it is the surface that will outlive future UI changes.