Torben: /* 2. Add missing locations */

2026-01-12T09:03:31Z

2. Add missing locations

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[[Category:Software]][[Category:Apple]]
==MacOS Photos App==

===My Cleanup Workflow===
====1. Organize all photos into albums====
Using Smart Album to find missing:
Album is not Any
Album examples:
* 2024/240615 Some Event
* Documents
* Home
* Kid 1
* Kid 2
* Kids
* Me
* People
* Screenshots
* Sports/Jogging
* Sports/Cycling

====2. Add missing locations====
Using Smart Album to find missing:
Photo is not tagged with GPS
ways to set locations:
* manual Copy & Paste from other photo in Photo App via Menu -> Image -> Location (works also for multiple photos)
* manual set location text in Photo App via (I) -> Location, via copy paste of common locations from text/Excel file (works also for multiple photos)
* using Python osxphotos, see below
# pip install --upgrade osxphotos
osxphotos add-locations --selected --window 1H

====3. Add missing faces====
Using Smart Album to find missing:
Person is
(with empty input)

===Interact with Python===

====Copy missing locations from neighboring photos====
Install osxphotos
python3 -m pip install osxphotos
Update later
python3 -m pip install --upgrade osxphotos

Run in dry-run mode on selected photos
osxphotos add-locations --selected --window 1H

====Copy locations from GPX file====
Install
osxphotos install gpxpy
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/RhetTbull/add_photo_locations_from_gpx/refs/heads/main/add_photo_locations_from_gpx.py

Run in dry-run mode on selected photos
osxphotos run add_photo_locations_from_gpx.py --selected myFile.gpx
if time zone info is missing in photo, set UTC offset parameter like --offset +05:45:00

====Extract exif data e.g. gps location====
osxphotos query --selected --json | jq '.[].exif_info'
via Python and copy location to clipboard
import subprocess
import osxphotos

def copy_to_clipboard(text) -> None:
process = subprocess.Popen(["pbcopy"], stdin=subprocess.PIPE)
process.communicate(input=text.encode("utf-8"))

if __name__ == "__main__":
photosdb = osxphotos.PhotosDB()
try:
while 1:
results = photosdb.query(osxphotos.QueryOptions(selected=True))
for photo in results:
print(photo.original_filename, photo.date)
s = f"{photo.latitude},{photo.longitude}" # type: ignore
print(s)
copy_to_clipboard(s)
input("Press Enter for next image...")
except KeyboardInterrupt:
pass

====Links====
* https://www.reddit.com/r/ApplePhotos/comments/133vca9/geotag_photos_with_gpx_file/
* https://github.com/RhetTbull/osxphotos
* https://github.com/RhetTbull/add_photo_locations_from_gpx

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Torben: /* 2. Add missing locations */