Today's Deep-Dive: Timelinize

You know, I think we've all been there.

It's this really modern kind of frustration, isn't it?

You want to look back, maybe find something specific from, I don't know, five years

ago.

Oh, yeah.

Maybe a holiday or that month you switch jobs.

But all your digital memories, they're just scattered everywhere.

Completely. Photos on one cloud, right?

Exactly. High res photos there.

Then the funny memes you sent are buried deep in Facebook Messenger.

Your run data is on Strava.

Your email somewhere else.

Yeah, that important email chain is archived deep in Google somewhere.

It's like, where's the actual story of you?

It feels so fragmented.

It really does.

Like history is just kind of slipping through our fingers. Right.

So today we're going deep on something designed to tackle this head on.

This huge problem of data sprawl.

It's a self-hosted open source tool called Timeline Eyes.

And the idea, the mission, really, is to bring your whole digital life together,

get that complete record back home, you know, onto hardware you control.

We really want to break down this powerful idea, personal data archiving,

and make it super clear and accessible, especially if you're just learning

about this stuff. Definitely.

But before we dive into this really cool tech,

we just want to give a quick shout out and thank the supporter of this deep dive.

Safe Server. Safe Server handles your software hosting,

and they really support your digital transformation journey.

You can find out more at www.safeserver.de.

And that idea of digital fragmentation you mentioned, it's so key

because it really underscores the the urgency here.

It's funny, isn't it?

We document our lives more than ever before.

Better than any generation yet.

But the record itself is somehow more.

More fragile, more ephemeral,

because we're relying completely on these big centralized cloud services,

these walled gardens everyone talks about.

Exactly. Controlled by massive corporations.

So the drive behind something like Timeline Eyes,

it's more than just convenience or better search.

It's really about liberating your data,

taking back control of your personal history from companies that,

well, they don't own it,

but they hold the only accessible copy right now.

Oh, OK.

And when you self-host a solution like this,

you're basically ensuring that your history is preserved like forever

under your control, no matter what happens to Facebook or Google down the line.

That difference, control versus just convenience, that's huge.

So let's nail down the basics for someone totally new to this.

What is Timeline Eyes?

And you said open source. Why does that bit matter?

OK, so Timeline Eyes, it's pronounced Timeline Eyes,

is basically an open source personal archival suite.

But maybe don't think of it just as a backup.

Think of it more like a a really specialized smart database

combined with a user interface.

Its whole job is to pull in all those scattered digital bits and pieces,

your photos, videos, where you've been, social media posts,

even little things like message reaction and organize them all

into one single connected timeline.

And the key thing, like you said, it's not another cloud service

you pay for monthly.

You use the term self-hosted for someone, maybe not super technical.

What does that actually mean for their data day to day?

It means you actually own it like true data sovereignty.

It runs completely on hardware you own.

Could be a home server, maybe a powerful desktop PC

or even one of those little Raspberry Pi type computers.

And the open source part you asked about.

That means the code, the instructions for the software.

It's all public.

Anyone can look at it.

So there's no sneaky data harvesting going on behind the scenes, you know,

and you're not locked into some proprietary format.

So you own the hardware, you own the software, full control, full control.

You decide who, if anyone ever sees that combined data.

OK, but here's a question, then.

Google Photos already organizes my photos pretty well.

Facebook has my posts.

Why would I go through the hassle of downloading these massive files

just to rebuild it myself?

What's the real win with the timeline I set up?

That's a fair question.

The win is unification and permanence, longevity.

Google shows you Google data.

Facebook shows you Facebook data.

Timeline eyes aims to show you, well, you the whole picture.

Exactly. The software is designed to import data from,

well, practically anywhere.

It bridges those corporate silos.

We're talking Google takeout archives, you know, everything from Google,

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, ex data dumps, fitness stuff from Strava,

Apple Photos, iCloud exports, even old text.

Yeah, even your ancient iMessage history, SMS, MMS messages,

raw GPS logs from trackers or apps.

It brings all those different streams together.

And just so we're clear, it's not meant to replace using Instagram

or Strava day to day is it? No, no, absolutely not.

That's key. It sits behind those apps.

Think of timeline eyes as your permanent private archive, your historical record.

You still use all your normal apps, but maybe every few months

you run timeline eyes to pull a copy of all that new data home.

OK, that makes sense.

Let's break down the actual how to then.

If someone listening is thinking, OK, this sounds interesting.

I want my own timeline.

What are the steps? Let's walk through it simply. Right. Absolutely.

It really comes down to four main steps.

And step one, honestly, is often the one that takes the longest.

It's kind of the unavoidable tax for using those big services.

Step one is obtain your data. Right. The export process. Exactly.

Since the companies hold the main copy, you have to go to each service,

Google, take out Facebook's download tool, et cetera,

and formally request an archive of your information.

And this is where you need a bit of patience.

Seriously, a heads up. Start this early.

Requesting big archives, especially from Google or Facebook, can take days,

sometimes even a week before you get that email with a download link.

OK, so patience is key for step one.

That sounds like the the admin side of owning your data. Pretty much.

So once that huge data dump, maybe it's 50 gigs of random files

finally downloads to my computer. What's step two?

Do I have to manually unzip everything, figure out weird folder names,

convert file types? That sounds like a nightmare.

Ah, see, that's where Timeline Eyes comes in clutch.

Step two is where the software really helps import your data.

You basically just point Timeline Eyes at those big zip files

or maybe dot tar files. You don't even need to extract them first.

Oh, really? Yeah.

Timeline Eyes is smart enough to understand the structure inside those

archives, the way Google or Facebook organized it.

It pulls out the important bits, timestamps, location tags,

who was in the conversation without you having to manually sort through folders.

OK, that sounds much better.

And where does all this organized info actually live then on my computer?

Good question. Lives in two main places.

First, all the actual files, the photos, the videos, the raw stuff,

they get stored neatly on your hard drive, usually organized by date and time.

Second, the index.

That's the searchable, structured part that connects everything

that lives inside a secolite database file.

OK, secolite. That sounds technical.

But why is that specific detail actually really important for someone starting out?

Does it mean you're not locked into Timeline Eyes itself?

Exactly. That's a really crucial point.

Using a standard format like squelet and the fact that it stores

the raw files simply on disk means there's no proprietary lock in.

That's what real ownership looks like.

If Timeline Eyes disappeared tomorrow or maybe in five years, you find a better

tool.

You can still easily access and work with all your data

using common free database tools. Right.

Your data stays yours, raw, accessible under your control.

That promise of longevity, that's powerful.

OK, so we've obtained the data, we've imported it.

What's step three? The payoff.

Step three is the fun bit. Explore and organize.

This is where you use the Timeline Eyes interface to actually see your unified life.

You can browse the classic Timeline view, look at everything on a map,

check out the gallery, use filters.

You can finally search across both Facebook and your text messages

for that one chat with your cousin without needing to open five different apps.

Ah, nice. And the final step, keeping it up to date.

Step four is just repeat. Simple as that.

Timeline Eyes is built for this.

You just run the import process again every few weeks or maybe every couple of

months.

It's smart enough to see what's already there.

Skip the duplicates and just pull in the new stuff.

So it keeps your timeline growing without making massive copies every time.

Exactly. Keeps it fresh and continuous.

OK, we've covered the how, but we absolutely need to talk about the reality

of using software like this, especially when it's new and open source.

There's a big warning label here, isn't there?

Yes, definitely. And it's important to be upfront about it.

Timeline Eyes is super exciting.

It's got huge potential, but it is still in active development.

The developers themselves label it unstable. Right.

What that means practically is that the underlying data structure,

they call it the schema, it's still changing and evolving.

So you might update the software one day and find that you actually need to delete

your existing timeline database and reimport everything from scratch

to match the new structure.

Ouch. OK, so the absolute golden rule for listeners right now is

don't delete your original downloads.

Precisely. Always, always keep your original source data,

those zip files from Google, Facebook, et cetera.

Keep them safe. Treat the timelineized database as a powerful view for now.

Not necessarily your only copy.

Got it. Back up the backups.

You'd say that. Yeah. OK, now let's get into the really cool stuff.

The things that make this more than just a neat filing cabinet.

It's doing more than just sorting by date, right?

There's this concept called entity aware processing.

Why is that such a big deal? Yes, this is kind of the secret sauce.

This is what really delivers that unification we talked about earlier.

Entity aware processing basically means timeline eyes tries to identify people,

pets, even organizations across all those different data sources.

You feed it like a universal contacts list. Exactly.

Think about it. You might have John Smith as a Google contact,

maybe Jay Smith in an old text message backup and perhaps

GS photography tagged on Facebook.

Timeline eyes spots those and says, hey, these might be the same person.

Then it lets you or sometimes it does it automatically

merge those into a single unified John Smith entity in your timeline.

OK, I can see how that makes searching way better.

Instead of finding bits of John Smith everywhere, you find all of John Smith.

Right. But the really magical outcome, the thing that feels almost like sci fi

is how this entity awareness

enables geolocation for data that has no location data attached.

Wait, what? How does that work?

OK, think about a simple text message and SMS.

It doesn't have GPS coordinates attached, right?

Right. Just the time, maybe. Just the time.

But if you receive that text message around the same time

that you and entity Timeline eyes knows about had a known location.

Oh, like from a photo taken nearby or my phone's GPS log.

Exactly. If Timeline eyes knows where you were,

it can project that text message onto the map at that location.

Why? So you don't just know what you read in the text.

You could potentially see where you were standing when you read it.

Precisely. The source material we looked at had this amazing example.

Imagine seeing a text message pop up on the map

right where you were when you first heard your nephew was born.

Oh, wow. The text itself is just words.

But the timeline reconstructs the spatial context, the place of the memory.

You just can't get that from silent apps.

That is genuinely cool.

And that ability that must feed directly into making the unified views

really powerful. You mentioned messages are often the most scattered.

They really are. But with Timeline eyes, they don't have to be

because it knows who's who that entity awareness.

It can offer unified conversations.

You can basically see your entire message history

with one person in a single scrollable view.

Imagine scrolling through a chat and seeing the SMS text you sent,

followed right by the Facebook Messenger reply they sent five minutes later.

All in one place.

OK, that solves a major headache right there. Definitely.

But hang on, if I put everything about my life into this one

super organized, self-hosted thing, haven't I just created

like the ultimate target for a hacker?

What's the security trade off here?

That's the absolutely necessary counterpoint. Yes, you're right.

When you consolidate data for convenience and insight,

you're also consolidating risk.

The trade off is shifting responsibility.

You move the security burden away from some abstract server farm

owned by a giant corporation, which you can't control, right?

Onto a physical machine that you do control. Yeah.

You gain control over how it's accessed, how it's encrypted.

It's physical security.

But yes, you also bear the full responsibility for keeping that perimeter secure.

It's a conscious choice about wanting that data sovereignty.

OK, that makes sense.

It's a responsibility, not just a convenience. Exactly. Got it.

So let's finish up with the visual side.

Beyond just the standard chronological timeline,

what other ways can you sort of look at your data?

What other projections are there?

Yeah, the different views are key for actually making sense of it all.

Besides the timeline, there's the gallery.

And importantly, it's not just your phone's camera roll.

It intelligently pulls in all the visual stuff.

Pictures, memes, gifs you sent or received in messages,

stuff you uploaded to social media, plus your actual camera photos.

OK, a truly complete gallery.

Then there's the 3D map view.

This shows your movement path over time, often using color

to show the passage of hours or days as you moved.

Like a heat map of your life's travels.

I know. Yeah.

And finally, there's a really unique one called the dashboard bubble chart.

This gives you a high level overview of your habits.

It shows you what type of data messages, photos,

location updates is most common at different times of the day

or maybe different seasons of the year.

Huh. Interesting. See patterns in your own digital footprint. Exactly.

So let's zoom out.

What does all this really mean for you, the listener, the learner exploring this?

What's the big takeaway value of going down this personal archiving path?

I think the core value is achieving, well, true data mastery.

You're actively building this authoritative, unified

and genuinely permanent record of your own life.

And crucially, only you control who gets access.

And that's the real difference, isn't it?

Archiving in this sense is about preserving the whole story

with context for the long haul.

Backing up is often just, you know, copying files somewhere else.

Preservation versus duplication.

Well put. And the vision, it actually goes beyond just your own hard drive.

The developers talk about potentially augmenting your personal timeline

with data from a global public timeline.

What would that look like?

Well, imagine being able to cross reference your personal memories

with things like, say, local weather records, major news headlines,

maybe even the political climate of that specific day or week.

Ah, context. Huge context.

You can maybe figure out why your family barely went outside one summer.

You check your timeline against the public data and oh, right.

It was 110 Fahrenheit, 43 Celsius for two solid months.

OK, that instantly gives your personal story a much bigger frame.

Exactly. It connects your micro history to the macro context.

That connection, the micro and the macro, that feels like a really powerful

potential future for personal data.

And the developer has one last really big, provocative idea, right?

Yeah, it's a fascinating thought experiment.

What if everyone had their own decentralized, self-hosted timeline?

Theoretically, these individual timelines could be merged

or at least interconnected to create a kind of global super timeline,

a truly comprehensive record of the human race.

And the crucial part, that record could exist without ever needing

to centralize all that incredibly sensitive personal data

onto vulnerable corporate servers.

It would be decentralized sovereign history, a distributed

history of humanity owned by the individuals living it.

That's the dream, a really fascinating concept and definitely a powerful reason

to think about taking ownership of your digital past and maybe your future too.

If this whole approach to data control and digital transformation

has sparked your interest, we really hope you'll explore it further.

And one last time, a big thank you to the supporter of this deep dive, SafeServer.

Remember, SafeServer handles your software hosting

You can find more info at www.safeserver.de

You can find more info at www.safeserver.de