I'm exploring a theory that photo-taking on smartphones happens in "sessions" where, once you've taken your phone out of your pocket/purse/backpack, you're often taking multiple photos in a row.
This is a set of scripts to run on your computer to the timing of photos in your entire photo library. I'm grateful for your help!
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In Mac Photos app: ~/Pictures/Photos Library.photoslibrary/originals/
On my Windows PC, in Dropbox ~/Dropbox/Camera Uploads/
The scripts we'll run below will be able to see photos even if they're in subfolders.
First, use a shell open to this folder location, i.e.
$ cd <your photo library's directory>
On Mac:
$ find . \( -iname "*.jpg" -o -iname "*.jpeg" -o -iname "*.heic" \) >> ~/my-photo-library-list.txt
On Windows, in Powershell:
$ Get-ChildItem -Path . -Recurse -Include *.jpg,*.jpeg,*.heic | ForEach-Object { $_.FullName } > ~/my-photo-library-list.txt
NOTE: .png isn't included here on purpose, as those are typically screenshots.
Check how many photos the script found:
On Mac:
$ cat ~/my-photo-library-list.txt | wc -l
23124
On Windows:
$ (Get-Content ~/my-photo-library-list.txt).Count
For example, I have 23k photos in my Mac library, from 2020-2024
You will need exiftool to read photo metadata.
On Mac, install with brew install exiftool
On Windows, install with choco install exiftool
The following takes a while to run. I found it takes about 1 minute per 1k photos in your library.
On Mac:
$ cat ~/my-photo-library-list.txt | xargs -I{} exiftool -time:all -G1 -a -s {} | grep SubSecCreateDate >> ~/my-photos-creationdate.txt
On Windows:
$ Get-Content ~/my-photo-library-list.txt | ForEach-Object { exiftool -time:all -G1 -a -s $_ } | Select-String "DateTimeOriginal" | Out-File -Append ~/my-photos-creationdate.txt
NOTE: for some reason, Mac Photos contain EXIF SubSecCreateDate, but photos in Dropbox don't. We rely on DateTimeOriginal there, but it would be really nice if we had sub-second creation time everywhere.
Send the output ~/my-photos-creationdate.txt, to me. Email works: dustin.freeman@gmail.com
To clean up, you can delete the two files we generated: ~/my-photo-library-list.txt and ~/my-photos-creationdate.txt
The output you share with me will have the timestamp and time zone of every file you've taken. It's fair if you feel uncomfortable sharing this private info. Read on...
Data Usage: All I'm doing with your timestamps is generating the plots "Photo Count Per Day" and "Sessions with a Given Number of Photos". I will save these images for comparison, and I will then delete the list of timestamps you sent. The plots generated will not be associated with your name anywhere (other than in my head, if I remember personally).
I use this Jupyter Notebook to generate the plots. You can run this yourself and send me your plots if you'd prefer.