Smart Albums
Smart Albums collect photos automatically based on a condition, instead of requiring you to assign photos to them by hand. Lychee has two kinds:
- Built-in smart albums — system-wide, virtual albums (Unsorted, Recent, rating tiers, etc.) that you can only turn on or off, not create or delete.
- User-created smart albums — real albums you create yourself, that pick their photos dynamically by matching tags or people instead of by manual assignment. They behave like regular albums otherwise (your own title, cover photo, sharing/access settings).
Both kinds re-evaluate their contents live, so a photo appears or disappears the moment it stops/starts matching — there’s nothing to keep in sync manually.
Built-in smart albums
Section titled “Built-in smart albums”| Album | Shows | Setting (default) |
|---|---|---|
| Unsorted | Photos not assigned to any album. | enable_unsorted (on) |
| Highlighted | Photos you’ve highlighted (the old “starred” flag). | enable_highlighted (on) |
| Recent | Photos uploaded within the last recent_age days. | enable_recent (on), recent_age (1 day) |
| On This Day | Photos taken on today’s month/day in a previous year (falls back to upload date if there’s no EXIF date). | enable_on_this_day (on) |
| Untagged | Photos with no tags at all. | enable_untagged (on) |
Highlighting a photo is really just a shortcut for giving it a 5-star rating from yourself — see below.
Rating-based smart albums
Section titled “Rating-based smart albums”Photos can be rated 1–5 stars, by any user with access, and Lychee averages everyone’s rating into rating_avg per photo. The “stars” smart albums filter on that average:
| Album | Range | Setting (default) |
|---|---|---|
| Unrated | No ratings at all | enable_unrated (off) |
| 1 Star | 1.0 ≤ rating_avg < 2.0 | enable_1_star (off) |
| 2 Stars | 2.0 ≤ rating_avg < 3.0 | enable_2_stars (off) |
| 3 Stars | rating_avg ≥ 3.0 (3★ and up) | enable_3_stars (off) |
| 4 Stars | rating_avg ≥ 4.0 (4★ and up) | enable_4_stars (on) |
| 5 Stars | rating_avg ≥ 5.0 | enable_5_stars (on) |
Note that 1★ and 2★ are exact bins, while 3★ and 4★ are cumulative thresholds (a 5-star photo shows up in all of “3 Stars”, “4 Stars”, and “5 Stars”).
Two more rating-based albums look at ratings rather than photos directly:
| Album | Shows | Setting (default) |
|---|---|---|
| My Rated Pictures | Every photo you’ve personally rated, sorted by your own rating. | enable_my_rated_pictures (on) — logged-in users only |
| Best Pictures | The top best_pictures_count photos by rating_avg (ties at the cutoff are all included). | enable_best_pictures (on), best_pictures_count (100) — requires Supporter Edition |
| My Best Pictures | The top my_best_pictures_count photos you’ve rated, by your own rating. | enable_my_best_pictures (on), my_best_pictures_count (50) — requires Supporter Edition, logged-in users only |
Per-user behavior
Section titled “Per-user behavior”Each logged-in user effectively gets their own view of every smart album — not because there are separate albums per user, but because Lychee’s normal visibility rules (what photos you’re allowed to see) are applied before the smart-album condition. Two settings adjust this further:
enable_smart_album_per_owner— restricts smart albums to only photos you own, instead of every photo you have access to.SA_override_visibility(expert setting) — the opposite extreme: makes any photo matching the smart-album condition visible through that album, bypassing normal photo visibility entirely. Use with care.
Smart albums that are about organizing your own contributions (Unsorted, Highlighted, Recent, On This Day, Unrated, Untagged) are only shown to users with upload rights; the rating-tier and “Best/My” albums are shown to everyone regardless.
By default, photos in albums marked sensitive by NSFW Classification are excluded from every smart album — controlled by hide_nsfw_in_smart_albums, on by default. This is one of several independent per-feature toggles (search, RSS, timeline, map, and Frame each have their own equivalent setting).
User-created smart albums
Section titled “User-created smart albums”Unlike the built-in ones above, these are albums you explicitly create, with your own title and (optionally) a chosen cover photo — they just don’t have photos manually assigned to them. Instead, you pick a set of tags or people and a match mode:
- Tag Albums — automatically include every photo carrying one or more chosen tags, matched with AND/OR logic. See Tagging.
- Person Albums — automatically include every photo containing one or more chosen people, matched with AND/OR logic. See Facial Recognition.
Like the built-in albums, both re-evaluate live — tag or re-tag a photo (or re-run face detection) and matching tag/person albums update immediately. An expert setting, TA_override_visibility, mirrors SA_override_visibility above but for tag albums specifically.