Exiftool

As I write this my consolidated photo album is being uploaded to kDrive, to serve as an offsite backup but the journey to this point took about two weeks, due in part to experimentation and learning to use various tools.

Tools I used

• rsync
• Google Takeout
• Flickr Export
• jdupe
• Gemini
• Euria
• Le Chat, by Mistral

Work Flow

The first step is to request your data from Google Photos via the Google Takeout Tool, the Flickr Export tool for flickr, and to download all your photos locally from Apple Photos before disconnecting the local library from iCloud. Disconnecting Photos from iCloud gives you 30 days to realise you made a terrible mistake and fix it.

Let’s begin by saying that Flickr is not intended for video. It’s meant for photographers to backup and share their photos with like-minded individuals. When you use the Flickr app for iOS and Android it automatically backs up videos, and photos.

After some trial and error I was able to get the exif data attached to photos and then sorted chronologically into folders. In the process I noticed that almost 10,000 files were missing when the transfer was finished. The reason for this is that they were video files.

Recently I decided that I would backup my Flickr library locally despite having over a year left on my pro account. In so doing, when the decision comes whether to dump, or keep using flickr, I will know that my data is safely backed up locally. Of course I decided to play with the archive but came upon a snag.

E6 Microdegrees

That snag is that Flickr uses the E6 Format, also known as Microdegrees. With Google Takeout, when I exported photoss I used the exiftool to add metadata to photos and it worked fine. Because it worked fine I then moved photos to Photoprism and Immich without issues. With Flickr photos using the E6 Microdegrees format photos displayed as being taken in the middle of the Atlantic near the coast of Africa rather than the canton de Vaud.