Long Echo: Photos and Mail

The Long Echo toolkit now covers conversations, bookmarks, and ebooks. But two of the most emotionally significant categories of personal data remain: photos and mail.

Both share a troubling pattern: they’re scattered across devices and cloud services, organized by date rather than meaning, and vulnerable to platform disappearance. They deserve better.

The Expanding Ecosystem

The orchestration layer, longecho, ties these together into a unified personal archive.

PTK: Photo Toolkit

Photos are the most emotionally valuable digital artifacts most people have. They’re also among the worst-managed.

The Problem

Your photo library is probably:

• Scattered — Phone, old phones, cloud services, camera imports, messaging app saves
• Organized by date — Not by who’s in them, where they were taken, or what they mean
• Cloud-dependent — Google Photos, iCloud, Amazon Photos—what happens when you switch?
• Unsearchable by content — “Find photos of mom at the beach” isn’t possible
• Missing context — Only you know why that blurry photo matters

The Vision

ptk provides:

Unified import from any source:

ptk import ~/Pictures/
ptk import ~/phone-backup/DCIM/
ptk import google-takeout.zip --source google-photos
ptk import icloud-export/ --source icloud

Intelligent organization by multiple dimensions:

ptk shell
ptk:/$ cd /people/mom
ptk:/people/mom$ ls
2019/  2020/  2021/  2022/  2023/  2024/

ptk:/$ cd /locations/beach
ptk:/$ cd /events/christmas-2023
ptk:/$ cd /years/2020/months/march

AI-powered features:

# Face detection and clustering
ptk faces detect --all
ptk faces cluster
ptk faces label cluster-7 "Mom"
ptk faces find "Mom"

# Scene captioning
ptk caption --all --model ollama/llava
ptk search "sunset over water"

# Semantic search
ptk ask "photos from our trip to Colorado"

Preservation guarantees:

# Verify nothing is corrupted
ptk verify --checksums

# Export to durable formats
ptk export ~/archive/photos/ --format longecho
ptk export photos.html --format html-gallery

# Original files always preserved
ptk originals list
ptk originals verify

Why SQLite?

Like the other Long Echo tools, ptk uses SQLite for metadata:

# Works even if ptk disappears
sqlite3 photos.db "
  SELECT path, caption, taken_at
  FROM photos
  WHERE caption LIKE '%birthday%'
  ORDER BY taken_at
"

The database stores metadata, face embeddings, captions, and organization. The actual photo files stay in place or are copied to a managed library—your choice.

Graceful Degradation

1. Full ptk → Face search, semantic queries, smart albums
2. SQLite queries → Find any photo by metadata
3. EXIF data → Dates and locations in the files themselves
4. Directory structure → Browse by year/month even with nothing installed
5. The photos themselves → JPEG will always be viewable

MTK: Mail Toolkit

Your email archive is one of the most complete records of your relationships and life decisions. Decades of correspondence, contracts, confirmations, conversations.

The Problem

Your email is probably:

• Trapped in cloud services — Gmail, Outlook, corporate servers
• Searchable only by keywords — Not by meaning or relationship
• A privacy minefield — Contains everything, shared with everyone
• Vulnerable to deletion — One account closure and decades vanish

The Vision

mtk builds on notmuch, the excellent mail indexer, adding features for personal archival:

Import from anywhere:

mtk import ~/mail/  # Maildir
mtk import archive.mbox --format mbox
mtk import gmail-takeout.mbox --source gmail
mtk import --imap imap.example.com --user me@example.com

Relationship mapping:

mtk relationships
# Top correspondents:
#   alice@example.com    1,247 messages over 8 years
#   bob@work.com           892 messages over 3 years
#   ...

mtk thread-with alice@example.com --year 2020
mtk relationship-graph --output relationships.svg

Enhanced search:

# notmuch queries still work
mtk search "from:alice subject:project"

# Plus semantic search
mtk ask "emails about the server migration"
mtk similar 12345  # Find emails like this one

Privacy controls:

# Redact before export
mtk export --redact-addresses --redact-attachments

# Filter sensitive content
mtk filter --exclude "password|confidential|ssn"

# Selective export
mtk export --to alice@example.com --after 2020-01-01

notmuch integration:

# mtk enhances notmuch, doesn't replace it
mtk notmuch-sync  # Sync mtk metadata to notmuch tags
notmuch search tag:important  # Still works

The Privacy Question

Email requires more careful handling than photos or bookmarks. mtk is designed with privacy as a core concern:

• Local-only by default — No cloud sync, no external APIs without explicit action
• Selective export — Export only what you choose, with redaction options
• Encryption support — Work with GPG-encrypted messages
• Relationship-aware filtering — Export only threads with specific people

The goal isn’t to expose your email to AI—it’s to make your own archive searchable and preservable while maintaining control.

Shared Architecture

Both ptk and mtk follow the patterns established by ctk, btk, and ebk:

SQLite-First

sqlite3 photos.db "SELECT * FROM photos WHERE faces LIKE '%mom%'"
sqlite3 mail.db "SELECT * FROM messages WHERE correspondent = 'alice@example.com'"

Virtual Filesystem Shells

ptk shell
ptk:/$ cd /people/mom/2023
ptk:/people/mom/2023$ ls

mtk shell
mtk:/$ cd /from/alice@example.com
mtk:/from/alice@example.com$ ls recent/

LLM Integration

ptk ask "find the photo from Sarah's wedding"
mtk ask "when did I discuss the budget with finance?"

Multi-Format Export

ptk export --format html-gallery
ptk export --format longecho
mtk export --format mbox
mtk export --format markdown

The Complete Picture

With ptk and mtk, Long Echo covers the major categories of personal digital life:

Each tool is independent—use only what you need. But together, they form a comprehensive personal archive that you own, can query, and can preserve for decades.

Status

ptk and mtk are in active development. The architecture is defined, core features are being implemented. Both follow the patterns proven by ctk, btk, and ebk.

If you’re interested in early testing or have specific needs for photo or mail archival, the repositories are at:

• github.com/queelius/ptk
• github.com/queelius/mtk

Your photos are memories. Your mail is relationships. They deserve the same careful preservation as everything else in your digital life.