After being present for many years on Flickr, I decided to import all my 980 photos with descriptions, GPS, tags and comments on Day One. I didn't find a solution for this process, so I decided to use my favourite tool, Node-Red. This import is using the archive exported for Flickr. It isn't working live when you add a new photo to Flickr.
There is the result of the importation with a small hand change (moving the picture to the top of the entry).
Of cause, you need to install Node-Red. It can be done on a server or your Mac using Docker. Be careful, this software is very addictive! :-).
You need to add some custom nodes to your Node-Red
- node-red-contrib-fs-ops: A Node Red node for performing file system operations
- node-red-contrib-fs: Node-Red nodes that work with the host filing system
You need to install the Day One CLI on your Mac:
sudo bash /Applications/Day\ One.app/Contents/Resources/install_cli.sh
You need to download your data on the Flickr website. You can use "Download all your content (Flickr Data)" on the Flickr Help. This is composed of a zip file of the JSON files and one or multiple zip files for the photos (depending on the size of the Flickr library).
Create the folder /data/flickr/ with permission 777 in your Node-Red. On my side, Node-Red run in a Docker container on my Synology NAS, my local path of the JSON files is:
/Volumes/docker/nodered/flickr/
Copy the Flickr's JSON files to this folder.
You need to extract the zip files of the photos and copy them to your computer (not in Node-Red docker). For me this path is:
~/Documents/DayOne/Flickr/Photos/
GPS data need to be converted into Timezone. After using deferents services, I decided to use TimezoneDB. It's free with registration. After creating your account, get your API key and add it to the node "prep request".
The free version has a limit of requests (one every second). This "limitation" can slow down the process for a very large library. On my side, it takes 50 minutes to process my 980 photos.
The flow will create two types of files for each photo:
- sh: CLI command to generate the entry, there is an example of this file
- md: Text of the entry, there is an example of this file
You can check the number of files generated in the terminal using "ls | wc -l" in the output folder:
ls | wc -l /Volumes/docker/nodered/flickr/output/sh/
When this part is done, you use de bottom section to merge the sh files.
/Volumes/docker/nodered/flickr/merge/flickr.sh
You can execute this script to create the entries on Day One.
The time of the entry isn't matching the taken time information from Flickr due to timezone issue. I contacted DayOne's developer for clarification about the CLI command.
The code:
Feel free to contact me with any questions.