Geo-Tag Flickr photos using Google Location History (Latitude) or other GPS data

Please note that the Flickr API can be unreliable. Fewer photos than requested may be returned, occasionally none at all. If this happens please try again. See the Yahoo Flickr API Group and Flickr API Group for various discussions.

Additionally the Flickr API has been acting irratically when used with min and max dates, so it might be best to just tag you latest x photos.

About

This app will attempt to automatically geo-tag your Flickr photos using Google Latitude or textual data. The exact location will be estimated by using the proportion of time passed between the two points either side of the time that the photo was taken. This app will never overwrite existing location data and will tag any photos that it geo-tags with geotaggedfromlatitude, this might seem like spam, but is there to help you in case anything should go wrong, and hence cannot be disabled. You can choose photos by tags, dates, or set in step 3. By default this app will not write data back to Flickr but will show you what it will try to do and why.

Set your time zone

Flickr does not record the time zone that your camera is set to, so to maximise accuracy it is very important to get the time zone right. Choosing your exact location allows us to hopefully handle daylight saving correctly. Note that this should match you camera setting, not just where you happen to be right now.

Authenticate Flickr

Flickr tokens will be held only as cookies in your browser and can be removed at any time by clicking the Disconnect button.

Flickr search criteria (optional)

Geo-tag photos taken on or after:

Geo-tag photos taken on or before:

Geo-tag photos tagged:

Maximum number of photos to tag:

Geo-tag set:

Note that this will return all photos from the chosen set, but only photos that are not already geo-tagged will be written to.

Choose your input method

Warning: Location history file downloads covering periods of more than a few days can be quite large, eg, 4megs per month. For best results add date parameter(s) above to limit the time span of points downloaded.

Download File:
Upload File:

Warning: The Google Latitude API has been retired, so this input method will not work. Use the two step Location History download and upload process on the prior tab.

Google tokens will be held only as cookies in your browser and can be removed at any time by clicking the Disconnect button. The Google token has a fairly short life, so don't be surprised if you need to re-authenticate regularly. Latitude points less accurate than 5000 metres will be ignored.

Authorise Google Latitude

Error: Your browser is not compatible with uploading files as it does not support the FormData type. See this page for a list of supported browsers. Please try the text input on the next tab.

Files must consist of lines of three space delimited fields containing a time stamp, longitude and latitude, in that order. Note that the Flickr search will be adjusted to search only within the data supplied, ie, no photos will be returned which were taken outside the time stamps supplied in the geo-data file.

Text must consist of lines of three space delimited fields containing a unix time stamp, longitude and latitude, in that order. Note that the Flickr search will be adjusted to search only within the data supplied, ie, no photos will be returned which were taken outside the time stamps supplied in the geo-data file.

Skip photos in gaps of more than: hours

This app will will not write data back to Flickr unless you check the checkbox below. This app can be quite slow, especially when writing back to Flickr. The biggest factor can be the amount of data returned from Google Latitude, so for example 100 photos taken over an hour may be processed more quickly than 10 photos taken over a week.

Results

The results will be presented here as a table, mainly of links. The Prior and Next links display the times closest to the time that the photo was taken and link to those two points on Google Maps. The Best Guess column shows the time at which the photo was taken and links to the point on Google Maps where the photo will be geo-tagged. The final two columns show whether writing to Flickr has been successful and any error messages if not. If the tag fails to write the location will not be attempted.

Tips

Obviously the more readings that Google Latitude saves the more accurate this tool will be. I believe that you can deliberately get Google to start logging your location by specifically starting Google Maps on your phone. So do this for example before and after shooting, or leave it running for the duration. Note that Google Maps does not need a data connection to remember locations, it should upload remembered locations when it can.

I've personally found that the biggest discrepancies come from situations where location (a) is logged in the evening, I take a photo in the morning in the same location, and then only after travelling some distance another location (b) is logged. The large discrepancy is due to the photo time being a lot closer to point (b) than point (a). Again, if you can it's best to log more locations.

Remember that you can delete spurious locations using Google's Location history manager. If it appears that the delete function is not working, it may just be that there are many points in exactly the same location.

Due to Flickr's nasty habit of ignoring time zone data it might actually be better to not change the time or time zone on your camera when you go abroad. Remember though that it is quite easy to change taken times, using Flickr's Organiser you can shift a selection of photos by a certain number of hours.

If you want to geo-tag photos which already have geo-data then you will need to remove that geo-data first using Flickr's Organiser. To remove all the geotaggedfromlatitude tags from your photos you can do that here.