flickr-archive-rebuilder

Rebuild and reorganize a Flickr export into a clean, portable photo archive.

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📸 Why This Exists

If you've downloaded your data from Flickr, you may have noticed:

• Photos and videos are stored in multiple data-download-* folders
• Important metadata (like the original capture date) is stored separately in JSON files
• Video timestamps may shift due to QuickTime/UTC formatting
• Albums are not reconstructed
• Uploading directly to Google Photos or Apple Photos can lead to incorrect timelines

Flickr provides the data — but not in a format that’s immediately migration-ready.

This tool fixes that.

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🧠 What Problem Does It Solve?

When exporting from Flickr:

• The actual photo files may not contain correct DateTimeOriginal
• Videos may have shifted timestamps
• Metadata like titles, tags, or GPS is stored in separate JSON sidecar files
• Folder structure is fragmented

As a result:

• Your timeline may be incorrect in Google Photos
• Memories appear on wrong dates
• Media becomes harder to search and organize

This project reconstructs a clean, standards-compliant archive.

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🧾 What Is EXIF?

EXIF (Exchangeable Image File Format) is metadata embedded inside image and video files.

It stores:

• Date taken
• Camera information
• GPS coordinates
• Orientation
• And more

Modern photo apps rely heavily on EXIF to build timelines and memories.

If EXIF timestamps are missing or incorrect, your media library becomes disorganized.

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🔧 What This Tool Does

flickr-archive-rebuilder:

1️⃣ Restores correct photo capture dates from Flickr JSON
2️⃣ Fixes video timestamps (QuickTime-safe handling)
3️⃣ Reorganizes media into a clean YYYY/MM folder structure
4️⃣ Optionally embeds titles, tags, descriptions, and GPS metadata

All processing happens locally. No APIs. No uploads.

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🛡 Safe-by-Default Design

• The original Flickr download is never modified.
• Media is first copied into an organized output folder.
• Metadata fixes are applied only to the output folder.
• Backups are created unless explicitly disabled.

This prevents:

• Cloud sync conflicts
• Accidental data corruption
• Polluting the original export

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📂 Typical Flickr Export Structure

Flickr Downloads/ data-download-1/ data-download-2/ ...

Flickr Json Files/ _part1/ _part2/

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🚀 Recommended Workflow

python3 scripts/rebuild_archive.py \
  --downloads "/path/to/Flickr Downloads" \
  --json "/path/to/part1" "/path/to/part2" \
  --out "/path/to/Flickr Organized"
This will:

Create a YYYY/MM folder structure
Restore photo and video timestamps
Leave the original download untouched

Optional:

--embed
to embed titles, tags, and GPS (if present).

⚠️ Cloud Sync Warning
Do not run metadata-rewrite steps while a cloud sync client (Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.) is uploading the same directory.

Recommended:

Generate the organized archive.
Let it stabilize.
Then upload that folder.

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📦 Result

You end up with:

Flickr Organized/
  2016/11/
  2017/06/
  ...
With correct timestamps and searchable metadata.

Ready for:

Google Photos
Apple Photos
NAS storage

Long-term archival

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🔒 Privacy
All processing is done locally.
No network requests are made.

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📜 License
MIT