I finally got around to organizing the photos on my external HDD, a task I had been ignoring for far too long.
There were over 100,000 of them in total.

Honestly, I tend to put off tasks that aren't related to work.
Without a clear external deadline, I can postpone things forever.
However, the data in my Mac's Photos app had reached its limit.
The bloated, single chunk of data had become unmanageable, and the app itself was unstable.
Now seemed like the right time to completely break free from app-dependent photo management.

Organizing them manually was out of the question given the volume, so I wrote a simple Python script.
It just extracts the photo data as individual files, reads the year and month from the Exif data, and automatically sorts them into monthly directories.

I ran it from the terminal.
It worked fine, but because the HDD is old, it looks like it will take much longer than expected to complete the process.
Even as I write this article, the logs are slowly scrolling by, and the process has already taken hours.

While waiting for it to finish, I blankly watch the trailing photo filenames in the flowing logs.
The chronological order is completely random.
Among the photos that caught my eye, there was one of me smiling casually.

Along with a feeling of nostalgia, I wonder if that expression I had back then is something the current me has lost.
Even though I'm merely moving a massive amount of data, my emotions are inexplicably busy.

Truth be told, the 100,000 photos currently being processed are just from one of several Photos app libraries I have.
Thinking about having to repeat this endless waiting time and emotional rollercoaster several more times makes me dread what's ahead.

With some free time on my hands while waiting, I decided to check the current market prices for SSDs as a distraction.
I figured if I have this much data, it would be healthier to move it all to a large-capacity SSD.
However, due to the recent price surge driven by semiconductor demand, 2TB and 4TB SSDs have become unimaginably more expensive than they were a few years ago.
I quietly closed the tab, deciding to hold off on buying one for now.

In the end, it seems I have no choice but to somehow manage and complete this massive undertaking of the past using the assortment of old storage drives I currently have on hand.

Technology solved the app dependency and the clunkiness of managing files.
But it seems it couldn't optimize this long wait time that forces me to look back at compressed moments of the past, one by one.
For now, until the organization of the first 100,000 photos is done, I guess I'll just keep gazing at the logs and my former self a little longer.