Image: u/SilentMode46 on Reddit · The HomeRoll photo library grid on an iPhone
HomeRoll, Apple Photos rebuilt for Immich
After moving 85,000 photos to Immich, a user had Claude Code build a native iOS app that looks and behaves like Apple's Photos app on top of their own server.
Credits
- Reddit poster SilentMode46 Source ↗
Earliest dated source:
The full story
After moving about 85,000 photos and videos to their own Immich server and switching off iCloud Photos, a user found no Immich app felt like Apple Photos, so they built HomeRoll, a native iOS 26 app. They took apart Apple's Photos frameworks from iOS 26.3 and went through all 226 actions the Photos app can do; 147 now work in HomeRoll, 140 of them covered by automated UI tests, while the rest depend on iCloud or Apple internals. It has the same zooming grid, viewer, editor, memories, people, places, search and automatic backup to the server.
How it was done
Tools
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Sources
From a short post by the maker, so the details are as they tell them.
- Reddit: I reverse-engineered Apple Photos and rebuilt it for my own server – iCloud Photos without iCloudReddit poster: SilentMode46Posted
The maker's post on how HomeRoll got this close to Photos.