PhotosToSocial

PhotosToSocial is a python script to publish post with photos into social media (WordPress and BluSky by now). The goal is to be able to post at least a photo every day without effort.

The workflow is like this:

1. Export the photos from lightroom or your favourite program into PHOTOS_TO_SOCIAL_HOME directory. Remove all metadata you don't want to expose before loading the photos into PhotosToSocial, I personally use the great Jeffrey Friedl's Metadata Wrangler Export Filter.
2. Load (running main.py --load) loads photos from home directory and prepare posts.
   1. PhotoLoader will load new photos and read metadata. This process will load new photos, comparing with posts already loaded and stored into POSTS_FILENAME json file.
   2. PostBuilder creates post from photos
      • Metadata:
        • Title will be added to the post text. If multiple photos in the same job share the same title, then it will merge in a single post with all photos.
        • Caption will be added to the post text. If multiple photos are grouped in the same post, the caption field will be used for the post text, appending the caption of every photo to the post's text, and as alt text of the image (if it has content).
        • Keywords starting with # will be added to the post. If multiple photos are grouped in the same post, duplicated keywords are ignored.
      • The posts are stored into POSTS_FILENAME json file.
3. Post (running main.py --post) sends next post to Social media. This option is intended to be called by a daily cron job.
   1. Reads next post to be published from POSTS_FILENAME json file.
   2. Send the post to social media, currently to BlueSky and WordPress (using Post by Email feature).
   3. Updates the post at POSTS_FILENAME json file.

Configuration

Set these environment variables to set up the script:

• PHOTOS_TO_SOCIAL_HOME: Home directory were photos and POSTS_FILENAME json file are stored.
• BLUE_SKY_USERNAME: Your BlueSky username.
• BLUE_SKY_PASSWORD: Your BlueSky password.
• GMAIL_USER_EMAIL: Your gmail email.
• GMAIL_APP_PASSWORD: An gmail app password.
• WORD_PRESS_POST_BY_EMAIL_TO: the recipient address configured for WordPress Post by Email.

Install

Python env

1. Create the virtual environment: python -m venv .venv
2. Activate the virtual environment: source .venv/bin/activate
3. Install dependencies: pip3 install -r requirements.txt

ExifTool

PhotosToSocial uses ExifTool to read tags from photos. Follow the instructions on ExifTool installation page.

Scheduled execution with cron

1. Set the environment variables in /etc/environment file so are available for cron.
2. Use update.sh to update the project.
3. Use load.sh and send.sh for easily set up the scheduled tasks. Set as executable scripts:

   chmod +x PhotosToSocial/update.sh
   chmod +x PhotosToSocial/load.sh
   chmod +x PhotosToSocial/send.sh

4. Run crontab -e to set up the cron expressions, for instance:

   # Update every day at 6:00
   0 6 * * * $HOME/PhotosToSocial/update.sh › $HOME/social/last_cron_update.log 2>&1
   # Load new photos every day at 6:30
   30 6 * * * $HOME/PhotosToSocial/load.sh > $HOME/social/last_cron_load.log 2>&1
   # Post every day at 7:00
   0 7 * * * $HOME/PhotosToSocial/send.sh › $HOME/social/last_cron_send.log 2>&1