Simple photo cataloguer

Just copy/hardlink photos (or video, or any other files) from one place to another, separating them in sub-directories like $ROOT/year/month/day/.

TL;DR

I have a smartphone, I have a Syncthing uugh... SmartThing and all photos from smartphone nicely synced to my PC without my attention. But I can't just keep all photos in synced folder: if I'll clean my phone memory - all photos from pc will be cleaned too. I need to not forget copy files in another place before cleaning phone's memory. Also, I can't just drop all photos in one dir - I will not find anything there later, and a folder with thousands photos looks like a bad idea from either side.
So I create this tool in one evening. All it does - copy (or create hardlinks for) files from one place to another, creating basic date-aware directories structure for that files.

Installing

go install github.com/derfenix/photocatalog/cmd/photocatalog@latest

Optionally you could copy created binary from the GO's bin path to system or user $PATH, e.g. /usr/local/bin/.

sudo cp ${GOPATH}/bin/photocatalog /usr/local/bin/photocatalog

Supported formats

At this moment supported jpeg files with filled exif data or any other files but with names matching pattern yyymmdd_HHMMSS.ext. Such names format applied by android's camera software (I guess all cams use this format, fix me if I'm wrong).

There is no support for changing names format without modifying source code at this time.

Usage

One-shot

Copy files (make a COW if fs supports it)

photocalog -mode copy -target ./photos/ ./sync/photos/*

Create hardlinks (only withing one disk partition)

photocalog -mode hardlink -target ./photos/ ./sync/photos/*

or

photocalog -target ./photos/ ./sync/photos/*

Monitor

Copy files (make a COW if fs supports it)

photocalog -mode copy -target ./photos -monitor ./sync/photos/*

Create hardlinks (only withing one disk partition)

photocalog -mode hardlink -target ./photos/ -monitor ./sync/photos/

or

photocalog -target ./photos/ -monitor ./sync/photos/

Install and run monitor service

Systemd

sh ./init/install_service.sh systemd

This command will install unit file, create stub for its config and open editor to allow you edit configuration. Config file stored at $HOME/.config/photocatalog.

Then enable and start service

systemctl --user enable --now photocatalog

That's all. Now, if any file will be placed in directory, specified as MONITOR in config file, this file will be copied or hardlinked into the target dir under corresponding sub-dir.

FAQ

Why this tool was created if there is awesome XXX tool?

I had two good reasons:

1. I wanted
2. I can