Data Hoarder

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We are digital librarians. Among us are represented the various reasons to keep data -- legal requirements, competitive requirements, uncertainty of permanence of cloud services, distaste for transmitting your data externally (e.g. government or corporate espionage), cultural and familial archivists, internet collapse preppers, and people who do it themselves so they're sure it's done right. Everyone has their reasons for curating the data they have decided to keep (either forever or For A Damn Long Time (tm) ). Along the way we have sought out like-minded individuals to exchange strategies, war stories, and cautionary tales of failures.

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Saved photo from iMessage, lost who from (alien.top)

submitted 2 years ago by jbeech-@alien.top to c/datahoarder@selfhosted.forum

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So I come across a photo I saved from a 'conversation' with someone using iMessage (saved to photos). Problem is, I don't recall with whom I was messaging and now that I've figured out a solution to to the problem (reason they sent the photo), I don't recall who sent me the photo. Am I screwed , or is there metadata of some sort associate with the image that will give me the phone number or email of the message from which I saved it? And because I have hundreds of messages I'm never going to find it manually. Honestly? This is driving me nuts. And I'm more than a little sad because I have the 'fix' needed (reason they send me the photo). Is there any data saved that would let me get there from here? Thanks in advance!

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[–] binaryriot@alien.top 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

If it's on a Mac there should be metadata, check with:

mdls /path/to/your/file

Usually there's some kMDItemWhereFroms or similar.

[–] jbeech-@alien.top 1 points 2 years ago

Daughter has a Mac laptop, but not as techy as we are (me and wife), but I'll ask her look into this, thanks. Meanwhile, have come across a few other photos where it would be nice to be able to get back to the senders, so I am quite hopeful for this working.

[–] wavewrangler@alien.top 1 points 2 years ago

I’m not positive on the answer to this. I would be optimistic that it’s definitely doable. Most definitely, with this attitude at least. While you wait for a more proficient answer, let me offer this suggestion: One thing you may try, is open the photo in Photos, and tap the i button. Do you get any kind of Meta data there? What kind of device, a date and time(this is what we want)

If you have a date and time, great, that can narrow your search down considerably for a..last choice manual search.

Even better would be if that it was taken with an iPhone. Then you know your look king at blue bubbles only.