--albums-from <string>

As detailed in the intro section, albums are a virtual concept in thumbsup. Files can belong to arbitrary albums regardless of where they are on disk. This setting determines how the photos and videos are grouped into albums.

The simplest value is a raw string where / denotes a hierarchy of albums. For example, --albums-from "Holidays/Tokyo" specifies that all files should go in an album called Tokyo, inside an album called Holidays. A more typical use case is to use keywords to generate albums on the fly based on the photos being processed.

Folders

The value %path automatically expands to the nested folder structure, relative to the input folder. For example:

File path	Pattern	Value
Holidays/Tokyo/IMG_0001.jpg	%path	Holidays/Tokyo
Holidays/Tokyo/IMG_0001.jpg	Family/%path	Family/Holidays/Tokyo

Date

The value {format} automatically expands to the date the photo/video was taken. The format must be a valid moment.js format.

File date	Pattern	Value
2017-10-21	{YYYY}	2017
2017-10-21	{YYYY/MM}	2017/10
2017-10-21	{YYYY}/{MM - MMM}	2017/10 - October
2017-10-21	Years/{YYYY}/{MM}	Years/2017/10

This always uses the creation date if available in the EXIF data. If there is no EXIF data, it tries to infer the date from the filename, or defaults to the file’s mtime. You can change mtime with many tools such as Unix’s touch command.

Keywords

The value %keywords expands to every ITPC keyword present in the photo. Keywords containing / are interpreted as nested hierarchies of keywords. For example:

Keywords	Pattern	Albums
beach, sunset	%keywords	beach, sunset
beach, sunset	Tags/%keywords	Tags/beach, Tags/sunset
beach, beach/sunset, beach/sunrise	Tags/%keywords	Tags/beach, Tags/beach/sunset, Tags/beach/sunrise

Multiple albums

A file can belong to zero, one or many albums. On the command line, simply specify the flag multiple times:

thumbsup --albums-from "Folders/%path" --albums-from "Years/{YYYY}"

If using a config file, specify the patterns as an array:

{
  "albums-from": ["Folders/%path", "Years/{YYYY}"]
}

Custom function

For more complex album structures, you can also specify a fully custom mapper using file:// followed by a file path (relative to the current directory).

--albums-from "file://mapper.js"

• The JavaScript file should export a single function which will be called for every file.
• The function must return an array of album names.
• The album names can include special tokens such as %path or {YYYY}.
• If you return an empty array, the photo will still be resized but won’t appear in any albums

For example you can separate photos and videos:

module.exports = file => {
  return file.meta.video ? ['Videos'] : ['Photos']
}

Or you can put all 5-star photos into a “Best photos” album:

module.exports = file => {
  return (file.meta.rating === 5) ? ['Best photos'] : []
}

Or have special logic based on your directory structure:

// if your folders are called "2016 [this event]"
const eventRegex = /(\d\d\d\d) \[([a-z\s]+)\]/
module.exports = file => {
  const match = eventRegex.exec(file.path)
  if (match) {
    const year = match[1]
    const event = match[2]
    return [`Events/${year}/${event}`]
  } else {
    return ['Events/Unsorted']
  }
}

You can either group all logic into a single function, or specify many mappers such as:

--albums-from "Photos/{YYYY}" --albums-from "file://5star.js" --albums-from "file://events.js"

--sort-albums-by <choice>

Criteria	Detail
title	Sort alphabetically by album title
start-date	Sort by the date of the earliest picture in the album
end-date	Sort by the date of the latest picture in the album

Defaults to start-date.

--sort-albums-direction <choice>

Album sorting direction, either asc or desc. Defaults to asc.

--sort-media-by <choice>

How to sort photos and videos inside each album.

Criteria	Detail
filename	Sort all media alphabetically by filename
date	Sort all media by date. The date is taken from EXIF data if possible, and otherwise infered from the filename or the file’s mtime.

Defaults to date.

--sort-media-direction <choice>

Media sorting direction, either asc or desc. Defaults to asc.