Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: Timelinize – Privately organize your own data from everywhere, locally

timelinize.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 172 posts

Show HN: Timelinize – Privately organize your own data from everywhere, locally

#1

Post by mholt »

Hey HN -- thanks for showing interest in this. Happy to collaborate on this project. I'm hoping to get it stable soon so my own family can start using it.

I've been working on this for about 10+ years, nights and weekends. It's been really slow going since I only have my own personal data to test it with.

I just don't love that my data is primarily stored on someone else's computer up in the cloud. I want my own local copy at least. And while I can download exports from my various accounts, I don't want them to just gather dust and rot on my hard drive.

So, Timelinize helps keep that data alive and relevant and in my control. I don't have as much worry if my cloud accounts go away. Hopefully you'll find it useful, and I hope we can collaborate.

(PS. I'm open to changing the name. Never really liked this one...)

Show HN: Timelinize – Privately organize your own data from everywhere, locally
timelinize.com

Re: Show HN: Timelinize – Privately organize your own data from everywhere, locally

#2

Post by akersten »

This is an amazing idea but do I have to run Google takeout every time I want to update the data[0]? Unfortunately that's such a a cumbersome process that I don't think I'd use this. But if my timeline could update in near real time this would be a killer app

[0]: https://timelinize.com/docs/data-sources/google-photos

Re: Show HN: Timelinize – Privately organize your own data from everywhere, locally

#4

Post by mholt »

akersten wrote: post #2

This is an amazing idea but do I have to run Google takeout every time I want to update the data[0]? Unfortunately that's such a a cumbersome process that I don't think I'd use this. But if my timeline could update in near real time this would be a killer app [0]: https://timelinize.com/docs/data-sources/google-photos

Yeah. Major thorn in my side. I spent hours trying to automate that process by using Chrome headless, and it kinda worked, until I realized that I needed to physically authenticate not just once, but every 10 minutes. So, it basically can't be automated since 2FA is needed so often.

In practice, I do a Takeout once or twice a year. (I recommend this even if not using Timelinize, so you can be sure to have your data.)

Re: Show HN: Timelinize – Privately organize your own data from everywhere, locally

#5

Post by mholt »

BinaryIgor wrote: post #3

Interesting; how easy is it to backup it up somewhere - yes, on a cloud for example - and then restore/sync it on another machine? Is the data format portable and easy to move like this?

Yep -- a timeline is just a folder with regular files and folders in it. They're portable across OSes. I've tried to account for differences in case-sensitive and -insensitive file systems as well. So you can copy/move them and back them up like you would any other directory.

Re: Show HN: Timelinize – Privately organize your own data from everywhere, locally

#7

Post by akersten »

mholt wrote: post #4
akersten wrote: post #2

This is an amazing idea but do I have to run Google takeout every time I want to update the data[0]? Unfortunately that's such a a cumbersome process that I don't think I'd use this. But if my timeline could update in near real time this would be a killer app [0]: https://timelinize.com/docs/data-sources/google-photos

Yeah. Major thorn in my side. I spent hours trying to automate that process by using Chrome headless, and it kinda worked, until I realized that I needed to physically authenticate not just once, but every 10 minutes. So, it basically can't be automated since 2FA is needed so often. In practice, I do a Takeout once or twice a year. (I recommend this even if not using Timelinize, so you can be sure to have your data.)

Some kind of companion app that runs on my phone and streams the latest data (photos, location history, texts, etc ) back to the timeline would probably be more tractable for live updates. But that is probably a wildly different scope than the import based workflow. This is very cool regardless.

Re: Show HN: Timelinize – Privately organize your own data from everywhere, locally

#9

Post by mholt »

akersten wrote: post #7
mholt wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. Major thorn in my side. I spent hours trying to automate that process by using Chrome headless, and it kinda worked, until I realized that I needed to physically authenticate not just once, but every 10 minutes. So, it basically can't be automated since 2FA is needed so often. In practice, I do a Takeout once or twice a year. (I recommend this even if not using Timelinize, so you can be sure to have your data.)

Some kind of companion app that runs on my phone and streams the latest data (photos, location history, texts, etc ) back to the timeline would probably be more tractable for live updates. But that is probably a wildly different scope than the import based workflow. This is very cool regardless.

For sure.

About 5-6 years ago, Timelinize actually used only the Google Photos API. It didn't even support imports from Takeout yet. The problem is the API strips photos of crucial metadata including location, and gives you nerfed versions of your data. Plus the rate limits were so unbearable, I eventually ripped this out.

But yeah, an app that runs on your phone would be a nice QoL improvement.

Re: Show HN: Timelinize – Privately organize your own data from everywhere, locally

#10

Post by clueless »

mholt wrote: post #4
akersten wrote: post #2

This is an amazing idea but do I have to run Google takeout every time I want to update the data[0]? Unfortunately that's such a a cumbersome process that I don't think I'd use this. But if my timeline could update in near real time this would be a killer app [0]: https://timelinize.com/docs/data-sources/google-photos

Yeah. Major thorn in my side. I spent hours trying to automate that process by using Chrome headless, and it kinda worked, until I realized that I needed to physically authenticate not just once, but every 10 minutes. So, it basically can't be automated since 2FA is needed so often. In practice, I do a Takeout once or twice a year. (I recommend this even if not using Timelinize, so you can be sure to have your data.)

How easy would it be to integrate this with immich (instead of needing the access to google photo)?
Post reply on HN