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Show HN: Timelinize – Privately organize your own data from everywhere, locally

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Hey HN -- thanks for showing interest in this. Happy to collaborate on this project. I'm hoping to get it stable soon so my own family can start using it.

I've been working on this for about 10+ years, nights and weekends. It's been really slow going since I only have my own personal data to test it with.

I just don't love that my data is primarily stored on someone else's computer up in the cloud. I want my own local copy at least. And while I can download exports from my various accounts, I don't want them to just gather dust and rot on my hard drive.

So, Timelinize helps keep that data alive and relevant and in my control. I don't have as much worry if my cloud accounts go away. Hopefully you'll find it useful, and I hope we can collaborate.

(PS. I'm open to changing the name. Never really liked this one...)

This is great. I want this but for much more. I want it to also be a nextcloud and zotero replacement, storing all my documents and books and documenting when I added, opened, edited them. I want it to store all notes that I write. I want it to record and display all browser tabs I open, when I do so, everything I copy and paste, every key I press. I want a record of everything I do in the digital world that is searchable and that can answer the question: "what was I working on 2 weeks ago on this day?" and bring back all the context also.

For obvious reasons this has to be self hosted and managed. I'm not interested in creating surveillance software or technology.

It sounds extreme but whenever I have seen peoples obsidian set ups with heaps of manual and bidirectional linking I always thought that time is the one thing we should look at. If I look up some concept on wikipedia today, there is a higher chance of me looking up related concepts or working on something related to that around this time also.

4 days agoby sureglymop

Oh yeah, mholt is notable for having created Caddy (the webserver). My interest in Timelineize just went up.

4 days agoby chrisweekly

This looks really cool and like something I've been subconsciously looking for!

A couple thoughts & ideas:

- Given the sensitivity of the data, I would be rather scared to self-host this, unless it's a machine at home, behind a Wireguard/Tailscale setup. I would love to see this as an E2E-encrypted application, similarly to Ente.io.

- Could index and storage backend be decoupled, so that I can host my photos etc. elsewhere and, in particular, prevent data duplication? (For instance, if you already self-host Immich or Ente.io and you also set up backups, it'd be a waste to have Timelinize store a separate copy of the photos IMO.) I know, this is not entirely trivial to achieve but for viewing & interacting with different types of data there are already tons of specialized applications out there. Timelinized can't possibly replace all of them.

- Support for importing Polarsteps trips, and for importing Signal backups (e.g. via https://github.com/bepaald/signalbackup-tools ) would be nice!

4 days agoby codethief

This is an amazing idea but do I have to run Google takeout every time I want to update the data[0]? Unfortunately that's such a a cumbersome process that I don't think I'd use this. But if my timeline could update in near real time this would be a killer app

[0]: https://timelinize.com/docs/data-sources/google-photos

4 days agoby akersten

"Because Timelinize is entity-aware, "it can project data points onto a map even without coordinate data. If a geolocated point is known for an entity around the same time of others of that entity's data points, it will appear on the map."

In the context of Timelinize, this is great! Outside of that, this sentence really drives home how much data Google could join on me -- a heavy Android/Chrome/Gmail/Maps w/ timeline user.

What are you planning with weather? Associating entities that have a known location with historical temp/forecast data?

4 days agoby kylecazar

Great work. Various ideas here:

You might suggest to users the following use case. “If you want to create a Timelinize data store, but don’t feel that your own local systems are secure enough to safely hold a basket with a copy of every egg in your life, you might consider the following use case, which some of our customers implement. Once our twice a year, update the data store, but store it on an external disk. When the update is done, take the disk offline and keep it in a drawer or safe.”

Also

I always wondered how cool it would be if I could tell some Spotify-like system, “I’m 20 miles away from the lake, we are going to stay in the cabins a week, just like we did 10 years ago. Play me the exact same songs now that played at every turn back then.”

Also

For a name, how about: ChronEngine That name seems pretty free and clear from previous use, if you like it grab ChronEngine.com before some squatter does and thank me with a phone call, I would enjoy a quick chat with you.

Also

Your web page might benefit from a grid that lists all the input sources you accept, with hotlinks next to the names that give a pop-up quick summary of what that source is about, and maybe some color coding that shows something like “green = rock solid lately”, “yellow = some users reporting problems”, “red = they just updated their format, it’s broken, we are working on it”. You will/are facing challenges similar to Trillian, a chat client from the early 2000s that would try to maintain ongoing connection compatibility with multiple other chat clients such as AIM/ICQ/MSN. Also, the grid could have a “suggested source sets” filter that helped people find what 5 (for example) input sources they might select for their use style.

Oh and make a list of anybody that says they have done an elaborate something similar with Excel (like me and at least one other person in this thread) and maybe have a discussion with them some time, we/they might have some useful insights.

Let’s hear it for people on the opposite side of the “go fast and break things” coin! My first project took 16 years. My current one I started 28 years ago!

4 days agoby BubbleRings

Nice project! If you don't like "timelinize" - have you looked at latin names? Perhaps something like Temperi?

In terms of Features, i'd like to see support for FindPenguins. A lot of interesting data (photos, videos, GPS coordinates, text) is already there.

4 days agoby Tepix

This reminds me of a similar project called HPI [1] that I discovered in 2022, the idea to aggregate one's digital footprints into one single private place really inspires me a lot. Timelinize is almost like a GUI version of HPI, a more sophisticated user product that everyone can use. I will definitely try it, congrats and respect!

P.S. HPI has many existing exporters, so it might be helpful to extend Timelinize's capacity.

[1]: https://github.com/karlicoss/HPI

3 days agoby novoreorx

Hey - this is awesome. I've been working on a small local app like this to import financial data and present a dashboard, for the family to use together (wife and I). So yeah - great work here, taking control of your data.

I'm curious about real-time data, or cron jobs, though. I love the idea of importing my data into this, but it would be nicer if I could set it up to automatically poll for new data somehow. Does Timelineize do something like that? I didn't see on the page.

4 days agoby bun_at_work

Cool idea. Thanks for sharing. I was really annoyed by the way Google nerfed the maps timeline stuff last year. Obviously this project is way more ambitious than that, but just goes to show you how little Google cares about the longevity of your data.

4 days agoby mhamann

This reminds me of Perkeep, but I understand this is more focused on the presentation of the data, while Perkeep was on the data storage. But maybe they could be integrated, or at least support each other's formats.

4 days agoby ObscureScience

Nice work. I’ve been frustrated with how closed off location history tools have become lately. This looks like a solid step toward giving people real ownership of their data again. Definitely checking this out.

4 days agoby sdotdev

Looks awesome! Btw, it would be nice if it can also support audio files, I frequently make multi hour long recordings (meetings, presentation etc) and it would be very useful to see pictures and other stuff from a specific time together with the audio from that timing.

4 days agoby hexagonwin

I really like the local storage of this. Files and folders are the best!

(When noodling on this, I’ve also been wondering about putting metadata for files in sidecar files next to the files they describe, rather than a centralized SQLite database. Did you experiment with anything like that by any chance?)

4 days agoby TheTaytay

This seems like the perfect thing to mix with financial records (ie bank feeds) and a local LLM.

I’m not sure what you’d use it for … exactly … but it could probably reconcile and figure out all your credit card charges based on your message history and location, allocate charges to budgets, and show more analytics than you’re probably interested in knowing.

People with a cloud connected car such as a Tesla could probably get some real “personal assistant” type use cases out of this, such as automatically sorting your personal and business travel kms, expenses and such for tax purposes.

There’s probably other use cases like suggesting local experiences you haven’t done before, and helping you with time management.

4 days agoby aetherspawn

I've always wanted this but not enough to build it. I wonder if I can integrate this with my Monica instance. Thank you! I'm going to try it.

4 days agoby renewiltord

It was a different era 15 years ago, made some decent inroads on an API based approach with the Locker Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locker_(software) but the platforms quickly started gimping the APIs and exports/takeouts were non-existent or too early yet back then, so ran out of steam.

Thanks for making this, def will be digging in!

3 days agoby jeremie

Thank you so much for this! I've also had the idea but, contrary to you, never had the courage nor energy to actually do it. I have some of my old devices backed up with the very first text my (now) wife and I exchanged, and this feels like the perfect use case.

So thank you so much, I now have another project to host on my home server, and a meaningful one.

>(PS. I'm open to changing the name. Never really liked this one...)

Timelinize is great, it explains what the product does

3 days agoby alex_duf

Very cool! I have a sketchy pipeline for exporting my data from Gmaps to my personal site and always thought about building something like this.

This could be a really interesting as a digital forensics thing.

4 days agoby ChrisbyMe

Like others I really like the idea and the realisation looks great too!

I might not be the typical user for this, because I'd prefer my data to actually stay in the cloud where it is, but I'd still like to have it indexed and timelined. Can timelinize do this? Like, instead of downloading everything from gphoto, youtube, bluesky, wtv, just index what's there and offer the same interface? And only optionnaly download the actual data in addition to the meta-data?

4 days agoby rixed

I have been recording my gps every few mins for the past 10years for this exact product.

Looks interesting.

4 days agoby dav43

I had this same idea for a long time. Even took github.com/center for it (I've since changed how it's being used). Cool to see someone actually achieve it, well done.

4 days agoby junon

Love the grind! One suggestion would be to add a demo link with some test data so we can see it in action.

I am also slowly "offlining" my life. Currently, it is a mix of synology, hard drives and all.

I have always thought about building a little dashboard to access everything really. Build a financial dashboard[1] and now onto photos.

[1] https://github.com/neberej/freemycash/

4 days agoby coffeecoders

Wow that's great! Interesting if it's possible to use not just a folder but like a s3-compatible backend for photos and for db backups as well

(I don't think all my photo/video archives would fit on my laptop, though the thumbnails definitely would, while minio or something replicated between my desktop plus a backup machine at Hetzner or something would definitely do the thing)

4 days agoby wizzard0

Interesting. But this seems to be limited to the supported data-sources? No generic format to build your own sources? Also, why the focus on a timeline? Not all personal data or tasks are time-related. So is this more about personal data, or a timeview on personal data?

If you want to have collaboration on this, maybe think about splitting it into backend and frontends. With the backend being the storage, and it's import-mechanism, and the frontend being open for anyone to put their own view onto the data, and maybe work with them.

Maintaining personal data has demand here, but so far there is no real unified project catering to a broad range of services and different types of data. So there is a space to fill and a community to build IMHO.

3 days agoby slightwinder

Super interested in this as well (and thank you for Caddy)

How does this handle data updating / fixing? My use case is importing data that's semi structured. Say you get data from a 3rd party provider from one dump, and it's for an event called "jog". Then they update their data dump format so "jog" becomes subdivided into "light run" vs "intense walk", and they also applied it retroactively. In this case you'd have to reimport a load of overlapping data.

I saw the FAQ and it only talks about imports not strictly additive.

I am dealing with similar use cases of evolving data and don't want to deal with SQL updating, and end up working entirely in plain text. One advantage is that you can use git to enable time traveling (for a single user it still works reasonably).

4 days agoby whacked_new

Oh I love this oh so much. It lines up with a lot of things I've wanted or am planning. So I'm definitely going to take a dive into your source for inspiration

One thing I wish for encompasses the idea that I might want to share different slices of my life with different groups

4 days agoby Jarwain

Sounds really cool. I’ve been wanting something like this. Kudos for building it!

I don’t see the link to the rep on on first glance of the linked site, so linking it here: https://github.com/timelinize/timelinize

4 days agoby TheTaytay

As for branding, IMO you could go a bunch of directions:

Timelines

Tempor (temporal)

Chronos

Chronografik

Continuum

Momentum (moments, memory, momentum through time)

IdioSync (kinda hate this one tbh)

Who knows! Those are just the ones that fell out of my mouth while typing. It's just gotta have a memorable and easy-to-pronounce cadence. Even "Memorable" is a possibility LOL

-suggestions from some dude, not ChatGPT

4 days agoby kevinsync

I wanted to give it a try, unfortuantely I fail already at the first screen. Selection a location the backend fails at creating the timeline:

    "error": "opening database: pinging database file: invalid uri authority: D%5CMy%20Timeline%5Ctimeline.db_foreign_keys=on&_journal_mode=wal&_txlock=immediate&mode=rwc"

It seems it is trying to parse windows file paths as URIs, and thrown off by the ":" in windows file paths.

3 days agoby ketzu

Oh man, this is awesome. I wanted an answer to Apple's Journal because I personally am using Obsidian (doing my best to tag and ref data). But this can be what I need to access that metadata layer and combine everything

4 days agoby asciii

Beautiful app. Surprised to see JQuery for your frontend; brings back good old memories.

4 days agoby LatticeAnimal

This basically brings your data from the cloud to local-first ! Kudos to your dedication and especially making this open-source for the benefit of everyone!

3 days agoby mentalgear

for many years I kept Tiny Travel Tracker running on my android phone, and would periodically import it into os&m maps. It was nice to have the record of all exactly all the places I had wandered to, and not also share that with five eyes. https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.rareventure.gps2/

4 days agoby totetsu

Interesting; how easy is it to backup it up somewhere - yes, on a cloud for example - and then restore/sync it on another machine? Is the data format portable and easy to move like this?

4 days agoby BinaryIgor

This is really cool! I’ve always wanted to do something similar, but didn’t want to invest the time, so thanks for seeing this through!

3 days agoby steveharrison

Very nice project, it is something what we all need right now in these days. Just noticed that you recommend Apple Silicon M2 or newer? Is there really a significant difference between M1 and M2? Is it running some LLM model in the background?

3 days agoby zenmac

Matt, I am so impressed by how far this has come. WRT naming, what about "Journey".

3 days agoby aboodman

This is just some feedback. But when including product shots on your web site, at least don't use real user data where you have to blur most of the content. It looks tacky and unprofessional.

3 days agoby iamleppert

Great idea! Do you plan to integrate with other services? I'm looking for similar solutions to collect feedback and improve my product. Are you already getting feedback from the community?

3 days agoby diodoe

Nice one, thanks for sharing. For sure I’ll give it a try.

Have you thought of creating a setup so as to package all libraries and dependencies needed? You have a very nice installation guide, but there are many users who just want the setup.exe :-)

4 days agoby NKosmatos

Very nice project! Curiousity question: since you are taking data dumps once-twice a year, and let's say you also copy the photos as well, do you do any updates incrementally or just replace the old one with new dump?

4 days agoby mtyurt

For a name, how about 'Rain Barrel' ? Your own personal cloud

4 days agoby throwrb

It reminded me of Camlistore (Perkeep). I've always liked that kind of project since I'm terrible at keeping my personal data organized.

3 days agoby mustafauysal

I am remembering Perkeep (nee Camlistore): https://perkeep.org/

4 days agoby EvanAnderson

This looks so cool ! I will try it ASAP !

4 days agoby LelouBil

When announcing a product, the language, license, version number, amount of time under development since inception, and approximate number of contributors are all critical pieces of information to include in an announcement.