How I Organize Screenshots, Screen Recordings and Demo Videos With a Mac Photo Manager

Developers often find their Macs cluttered with various media files such as screenshots, screen recordings, and demo videos. These files can include sensitive information like staging dashboards, API keys, and customer data. It's crucial to keep these files organized, secure, and easily accessible. A common solution is to use the Desktop or a specific folder like "old-desktop," but this can be messy and inefficient.

The author developed a system that involves creating plain folders on the disk, using tags and star ratings, and employing a local Mac photo manager for browsing and searching. This approach ensures that all developer media is stored locally, remains secure, and is readily available when needed.

The folder structure is organized as follows:

- ~/Media/dev/inbox/ for macOS screenshots and recordings

- projects/ name / for each product or client

- talks/ for slide photos and conference demos

- archive/ year / for older media (older than 6 months)

Once a week, the inbox is triaged by deleting or moving media into the appropriate project folders. This simple rule helps maintain a clean and organized media library.

For browsing and searching, the author uses PixRoom, a native Mac photo manager that organizes local folders. It handles photos and videos in the same view, making it easy to search and find media. PixRoom also supports tagging and rating, allowing users to quickly identify important media files. The tagging scheme typically includes project names (e.g., bug, before, after, demo, store-preview, talk) and contains-secrets to mark sensitive information.

The rating system consists of 1-5 stars, with 5 stars indicating a final asset ready for public use, 3 stars for good candidates, and 1 star for files to be deleted during the next cleanup. A search for demo with 5 stars, for example, can quickly retrieve all shipped demo videos.

A weekly cleanup process involves opening the inbox, sorting files by date, rating and tagging relevant media, and deleting low-rated files. Periodically, it's essential to check for any sensitive data that may have been included in the media.

While PixRoom offers some Lightroom-like features, it is primarily an organizer and not an editing tool. It's a Mac-only application, making it an ideal choice for developers working on Mac systems.