chr1sc2y/media-toolkit/apple-photos-location-fill

Apple Photos Location Fill

Use mt fill-locations. Keep planning and writing as two separate, user-visible stages. Never write locations directly through AppleScript while this command is available.

1. Create a review plan

For the full library:

mt fill-locations --force-refresh

For a bounded date range:

mt fill-locations --start 2026-06-01 --end 2026-06-07 --force-refresh

--start is inclusive and --end is exclusive. They filter rows in the generated plan only; they do not shorten the full Photos library scan. Use --scan-start when a lower-bounded incremental scan is intended.

For an incremental scan after a known completion point:

mt fill-locations --scan-start "2026-04-30 00:00:00" --force-refresh

Review these generated artifacts:

• outputs/photos_location_fill_plan.html
• work/photos-location-fill/photos_location_fill_plan.json
• work/photos-location-fill/run_history.json

Record the printed Plan SHA-256 and bind approval to that exact JSON digest.

Report the latest run's planned count, warnings, source-location read errors, and largest chosen time delta. Each proposed row must preserve the previous and next located candidates so the choice is auditable.

Apple Photos queries can take several minutes. Let a bounded scan finish unless Photos reports an error or the user asks to stop. Never apply an interrupted or partial plan.

2. Apply only after explicit confirmation

After the user has reviewed and explicitly approved that exact JSON plan:

mt fill-locations --apply-plan work/photos-location-fill/photos_location_fill_plan.json

--apply-plan must use the reviewed coordinates without rescanning Photos or rebuilding neighbor choices. Confirm that its printed Plan SHA-256 matches the approved digest. The former combined --apply path is disabled.

Photos writes are item-by-item, not transactional. If apply is interrupted, or returns any error count, treat the library as potentially partially updated: do not blindly rerun the old plan; generate or inspect a fresh audit and review the remaining targets first.

To reject a proposed row, edit a copy of the JSON so that row has empty source_id, latitude, and longitude strings, add a clear rejection note, then re-review and approve the complete modified JSON and its new SHA-256. Do not delete schema fields or apply a partially reviewed file.

Rules

• Choose the closer timestamp neighbor when both previous and next candidates

exist. Record both deltas; do not impose an automatic time cutoff.

• Leave a row unresolved when no acceptable located neighbor exists.
• The implemented method is time-based. Do not claim visual similarity,

thumbnail comparison, or embeddings are used.

• Reuse a reviewed cached plan for repeated review/apply work unless the user

requests a refresh.

• A future watermark may narrow scans, but it must never remove neighbor

evidence or make apply rescan. Advance it only after an approved apply, or after the user explicitly accepts a dry-run-only watermark update.