Quick start
Run ImgYoung with Docker, sign in to the console, upload your first image and get its Markdown link.
You need a machine with Docker installed (Linux, macOS or Windows) whose port 8721 you can reach from a browser. For installs without Docker, see Install.
Start the service
docker run -d --name imgyoung --restart unless-stopped \
-p 8721:8721 \
-v imgyoung-data:/data \
ghcr.io/x-haose/imgyoung:latest-v imgyoung-data:/data: the database, the images in the built-in local channel and the master keymaster.keyall live in this volume. Deleting the volume deletes everything.--restart unless-stopped: restoring the metadata database from a snapshot in the console makes the service exit on purpose; Docker starts it again and the snapshot is swapped in on startup. Without a restart policy the container stays stopped after a restore.
Check that it started:
docker logs imgyoungLook for a line with msg="ImgYoung 已启动" (log messages are in Chinese). The first start also prints two level=WARN lines, 已生成主密钥文件,请立即备份——丢失将导致渠道配置与加密渠道数据永久不可恢复 (a master key file was generated; back it up now) and 已初始化默认管理员密码,请登录后立即在后台修改 (the default admin password was initialized; change it after signing in). Both are expected.
Sign in and change the password
Open http://<server address>:8721/ in a browser (http://localhost:8721/ on the same machine) and sign in with the factory account:
| Username | Password |
|---|---|
admin | imgyoung123 |
The factory password is public. After the first sign-in you land on the "Set the admin password" page. Until the password is changed no other console page opens, and the server rejects every console API call other than signing out, reading your own account and changing the password (with 403). The new password needs at least 8 characters; click "Save and sign in again", then sign in with the new password.
Upload your first image
Pick one: upload in the console, or issue an upload token and upload with curl.
- Open "Images" in the sidebar and click "Upload".
- Drag images into the dialog, or press Ctrl / ⌘ + V to paste a screenshot from the clipboard. JPEG, PNG, GIF and WebP are accepted, up to 50 MB per image by default.
- When the upload finishes, close the dialog, click the image card to open "Image details", and under "Share link" pick Markdown next to "Copy as".
The Markdown looks like this:
Paste it into your blog or notes and the image shows up.
Where the host name in the link comes from
Until the public site address (base_url) is configured, links are built from the address of the current request: if you opened the console via localhost, the copied link points to localhost and will not work on other machines.
To share links, open the console through its public domain or IP, or set base_url under "Settings → Runtime settings". See Configuration.
Next steps
Right now everything sits on one disk
A fresh instance has only the built-in local channel, which stores images under blobs/ in the data volume. Metadata snapshots are written to every healthy channel, so for now this disk holds the only copy. If it fails, the images and the snapshots are lost together, and the "Dashboard" warns "Your data only lives on this host".
Open "Storage channels" in the sidebar soon and click "New channel" to add an off-site object storage or cloud drive channel. Existing images are replicated to it automatically, and a snapshot is written there on the next scheduled backup or the next start; for a copy right away, click "Back up now" under "Settings → Backups & export". Once the new channel is healthy, the dashboard warning goes away.
- Storage channels: add an off-site channel, set priority and encryption.
- Backup and restore: back up the master key
master.keyseparately. It is not part of the snapshots; without it the service refuses to start, and the channel credentials and encrypted data cannot be recovered. - Reverse proxy: serve it over HTTPS on your own domain.
- Clients: set up PicGo, PicList, Typora and other clients.
- Docker image: image tags, the data volume and environment variables in full.
Introduction
ImgYoung is a self-hosted image host with multi-channel failover. Every image is stored on several storage channels, so losing one does not break uploads or links.
Installation
Five ways to install, compared - the install script, the Docker image, Docker Compose, release archives and building from source.