PhotoStructureCleaner

Problem

For years I've uploaded photos from my camera to Apple's cloud (iCloud). But I never had a folder system I wanted to keep them in. I tried several times and gave up each time.

What I built

An app that sorts photos into a tidy folder structure by itself. It also adds location data to photos from a camera that doesn't have that feature.

Result

My photo library is finally in order, without any manual work on my part.

How it works

• It reads the whole Photos library and looks through the old albums to see what is already in order.
• It adds place names to photos from a camera without GPS, turning coordinates into place names (OpenStreetMap).
• It pairs the RAW and JPG files of the same photo and sorts photos into unprocessed, processed and rated.
• Before writing anything, it shows a plan of changes to review (also as CSV) and carries it out in batches. The first run is a test, and before the first write the app backs up albums, captions and keywords.
• It suggests topics based on the ones I have already assigned. Photos are analysed locally on the Mac (Apple Vision). It also finds groups of similar photos without a topic and proposes new categories.
• After each import, one click on “Update” puts the new photos where they belong.

Technology: Python, Apple Photos (JXA, PhotoKit), Apple Vision, macOS