Now this has been a pain of mine for years.

I belong to the other side - the Android and Linux. At that time I was quite freshly on Void after several years of hopping here and there. And I happen to have a very unpopular Android device for a phone. That one has no chance to have a second life with custom ROM - that is, if I am not willing to put it all together myself. My fellow-androider-linuxer had a bit more popular phone that has a mighty chance to get a ported ROM and he was probably running gentoo on his very nice, shiny and quite powerful ThinkPad laptop at that time.

Yes, there were only three of us. But despite the differences on the outside, we were all connected by a serious flaw of the workflow on the inside. Noone had a good solution for sorting, categorising, foldering, archiving the photos and video strips. Whatever the Mr Apple’s Apple by default did - that clearly was not to he’s liking. Nor did we, the Android users, like the overview of what we got in our devices.

The Problem

I guess it is all good if you take photos and videos for fun and family, upload them to the cloud and then browse them, by taking turns, in front of the tv on weekends. I bet there are somewhere inbuilt options to have them combined too - something like “Highlights Of Your Last Week” and if you’re not really into it - you do not need to specially actually edit them.

But when one has an enormous amount of video clips, several takes of one special action (just in case), longer recordings of things that need longer explanation (also three, may be four) and all that of multiple projects over a week, things get really messy. And since one might also want to participate on weekend activities time to time, one has all those work-materials pickled together with those clips and photos that are meant for that event.

If you’re like me, then you you’re saved at least this much that you really don’t have those kinds of tv-nights. I have very little material that’s not work related and it is easy to pick them out. Whenever I feel a need to share something with my family, I do it then and there and without even having the thing saved onto my phone. Off it goes through the chat and that’s it. I guess the need of taking selfies a lot has diminished by the fact that my face gets recorded anyway quite often and the novelty and excitement are lost in there somewhere.

And there it comes - the day when I should prepare my next week social-media photos and clips. Photos is easy as they come from a proper camera and get edited on the desktop computer. Proper camera can make videos too but I haven’t got to it yet. It needs some setup and testing. Another thing here is, that - wasn’t the social-media supposed to be easy, fun and quick? This means doing the whole thing on the phone, right?

But let’s save something for another rant too, shall we…

So here I am, looking into my phone’s media library. Yes, I may sort them by date and whatnot. Somehow this does not make anything better - I have not yet seen any inbuilt app that would make any of this logical. I am so into putting things into directories - big fan of that! Date_heading, all nicely arranged top to bottom, everything clear in one glance! Why on earth couldn’t I have a camera app that allows me to choose where to save the next session? It all would be ready for cutting as simply as that! Whenever I need to add something for that specific set I could easily just select the destination again.

Hunting For Tools

I think I saw some sort of camera-app on F-Droid that allowed this sort of behaviour. The problem here is, that the camera app itself wasn’t much of a thing. It was very simple and just for photos too. I need videos. Also, I have a theory that the inbuilt app actually takes into account the hardware the phone has and is thus most useful and produces best results too. I would be very disappointed if that’s not true…

I hope that I have finally found the tools to cater to my needs. There are few steps to follow, three to be exact, but I hope this will save me from the hours of sorting later.

1. Open Camera Date Folders app and let it do its thing. Everything gets moved to the folder that has a date as a name for it.
2. Add the heading/name part to the date so I know what’s in it.
3. Upload the new folder to my self-hosted Filebrowser Quantum instance.

Third is occasionally optional for me - depending on when I plan to use the contents in it. And whenever I need to add something to that batch, I already have a designated project directory set up and it is easy to just add to it.

I move the files either by Filebrowser Quantum web interface (what is the most effective way to do that but I get logged out, haven’t set up an extended thingy to be logged in longer and it is very secure but tedious to go and get the password) or through a file manager on my Android.

I’d say the filemanager searches probably have not yet ended. Though Material files is listed as a supported and working option on Filebrowser Quantum page, I get the sftp connection but no WebDAV for me unfortunately. I’ve dabbled with the setiings for hours - no luck.
It is worth noting that I probably will never miss much the WebDAV connection (as browser works everywhere and I really can not imagine the urgency to upload something while on the go…) but I also do not like things that do not work all the way as advertised. It makes me itch! Also, I will most probably find myself soon enough in the situation where i do really need the option… it’s the law of things! Also, the fault (the connection problem) most likely lies within me.

So at the moment I tend to favour Ghost Commander. Just select a destination on one panel and the things you’d like to copy or move on the other and it’s done!

Since the inbuilt gallery app also offers bunch of stuff I do not need and lacks in the other hand quite a list of the options I would like to have, I have been forced to look at the alternatives for gallery applications for Android too.
And good thing I did go looking as I’ve encountered an impressive one! ReFra seems to be today under quite active development and I’ve seen some weird views sometimes. I will keep it for now, it looks really very promising and attractive. I have added my Filebrowser Quantum via WebDAV and it shows up nicely. On better days with thumbnails an all!

Now when the time comes to put those reels together, I will copy the directory, that I will find quickly as there’s a date and heading/name on it, back to phone’s storage.

I have no idea what’s out there for Apple users. Or what is their situation in this light really, as I’ve never used an Apple device. Just my friend’s words that it is not satisfactory.