syno-media-organizer

Automatically organize photos and videos on a Synology NAS by reading EXIF metadata and placing files into a dated folder hierarchy (ANNEE/MOIS).

Designed for the DS216play (ARMv7l, 512 MB RAM) running DSM 7.x with minimal CPU and memory footprint. Runs as a native Synology SPK service.

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Features

• Polls one or more input folders every N seconds (default: 30s, configurable)
• Photos: reads EXIF DateTimeOriginal (tag 0x9003) — JPEG, HEIC, PNG, TIFF
• Videos: reads QuickTime mvhd creation date (UTC → local time) — MP4, MOV, AVI, MKV…
• Files without the required metadata tag are skipped — no fallback, no data loss
• Moves files to output/YYYY/MM/ according to a configurable naming pattern
• Handles filename conflicts: rename, skip, or overwrite
• Structured JSON logging compatible with DSM log center
• Graceful shutdown on SIGTERM (DSM stop command)
• Statically linked (musl) — no GLIBC dependency, works on any DSM kernel

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Architecture

every poll_interval_secs (default: 30s)
     │
  watcher (scan input folder)
     │
  processor
     ├── validate extension
     ├── read capture date
     │     ├── photo → EXIF DateTimeOriginal (tag 0x9003)
     │     └── video → QuickTime mvhd creation_time (UTC → local)
     ├── apply naming pattern
     ├── resolve conflicts
     ├── create directories
     └── move (rename syscall, fallback copy+delete)

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Requirements

Requirement	Value
NAS architecture	DS216play (STM Monaco STiH412 — ARMv7l)
DSM version	7.0 minimum (tested on DSM 7.1.1)
RAM	512 MB minimum

Other monaco-platform models (DS215play, DS214play) should also work. Models with a different SoC (DS216, DS116 — armada38x platform) are not compatible with this package.

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Installation on Synology NAS

Option A — Via Package Center (recommended, enables auto-updates)

1. In DSM: Package Center → Settings → Package Sources → Add
   • Name: Syno Media Organizer
   • URL: https://jordanatdown.github.io/syno-media-organizer/packages.json
2. Click OK, then search for Syno Media Organizer in Package Center and install
3. Future updates appear automatically in Package Center

Option B — Manual install

1. Download the latest .spk from Releases
2. In DSM: Package Center → Manual Install → select the .spk file

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After installing (either method):

3. Grant shared folder permissions (required — see section below)
4. Edit the config via File Station:
   • Open File Station → shared folder config → syno-media-organizer → config.toml
   • Right-click → Open with Text Editor (install the free Text Editor package if needed)
   • Or via SSH: vi /volume1/config/syno-media-organizer/config.toml
5. Start the service from Package Center → Syno Media Organizer → Run
6. Check logs (SSH):

   tail -f /var/packages/syno-media-organizer/var/syno-media-organizer.log

Upgrading: existing config.toml is automatically migrated and preserved. Uninstall: Package Center → Syno Media Organizer → Uninstall

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Shared folder permissions (required)

The service runs as a dedicated system user syno-media-organizer. Synology shared folders restrict access by user — you must explicitly grant this user access to every shared folder the tool reads from or writes to.

For each shared folder used as input or output in your config:

1. Panneau de configuration → Dossier partagé
2. Select the folder → Modifier → tab Permissions
3. Click Ajouter → search for user syno-media-organizer
4. Grant: Lecture/Écriture (Read/Write) on input folders; Lecture/Écriture on output folders

The config shared folder (where config.toml lives) is handled automatically by the installer — no manual action needed for it.

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Configuration

# Scan interval in seconds (optional, default: 30)
poll_interval_secs = 30

[[folders]]
input          = "/volume1/inbox/camera"
output         = "/volume1/Phototheque"
pattern        = "{year}/{month}/{prefix}{year}-{month}-{day}_{hour}{min}{sec}_{stem}{ext}"
recursive      = true
photo_prefix   = "IMG_"   # optional, default: ""
video_prefix   = "VID_"   # optional, default: ""
on_conflict    = "rename"   # rename | skip | overwrite
extensions     = ["jpg", "jpeg", "png", "heic", "mp4", "mov", "avi", "mkv"]
# excluded_dirs = ["@eaDir", "@SynoEAStream", "@Recycle", "#recycle", "@tmp"]

Excluded directories

The excluded_dirs option controls which directory names are silently skipped during scanning (matched against every component of the file path, not just the top-level folder).

Default value — automatically excludes all Synology DSM hidden folders:

Directory	Purpose
@eaDir	Thumbnails and metadata generated by Synology Photos / Photo Station
@SynoEAStream	Extended attribute streams (DSM filesystem feature)
@Recycle	Shared folder recycle bin
#recycle	Alternate recycle bin name (depends on DSM version)
@tmp	DSM temporary files

Other DSM directories you may want to add depending on your setup:

Directory	Purpose
@sharebin	Shared folder trash (older DSM versions)
@database	Synology Photos internal database
@photos	Synology Photos working directory
@Recently-Snapshot	Btrfs snapshot staging area

To override the default list, add excluded_dirs to any [[folders]] block:

excluded_dirs = ["@eaDir", "@SynoEAStream", "@Recycle", "#recycle", "@tmp", "my-custom-dir"]

No-date cache

Files that have no capture date metadata (no EXIF DateTimeOriginal, no QuickTime mvhd creation time) cannot be organised. By default the watcher logs a WARN the first time it encounters such a file and then remembers it in a persistent cache (no_date_cache.json, stored next to config.toml). On subsequent scan cycles the file is silently skipped.

The cache entry is automatically invalidated when:

• The file's modification time changes (e.g. you add EXIF with exiftool) — the file will be re-tried on the next scan.
• The TTL expires — if no_date_cache_ttl_days is set, the file is retried after that many days regardless of mtime.

Global config options (add to config.toml, outside any [[folders]] block):

# default: true — set false to always re-scan all files, even those without metadata
no_date_cache_enabled = true

# default: 0 (never expire) — set e.g. 30 to retry files without metadata once a month
no_date_cache_ttl_days = 0

To reset the cache manually, delete the file:

rm /volume1/config/syno-media-organizer/no_date_cache.json

The cache is also deleted automatically when the package is uninstalled from Package Center (your config.toml is preserved).

Pattern tokens

Token	Description
{year}	4-digit year (2024)
{month}	2-digit month (01–12)
{day}	2-digit day (01–31)
{hour}	2-digit hour (00–23)
{min}	2-digit minute
{sec}	2-digit second
{stem}	Original filename without extension
{ext}	Extension with dot (.jpg)
{camera}	Camera model from EXIF (or unknown)
{counter}	Auto-increment counter (0001, 0002, …)
{prefix}	photo_prefix for photos, video_prefix for videos (default: "")

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Supported formats

Photos — EXIF DateTimeOriginal (tag 0x9003)

Extension	Format
.jpg / .jpeg	JPEG
.heic / .heif	High Efficiency Image (iPhone)
.png	PNG with EXIF APP1 block
.tiff / .tif	TIFF

The file must contain a valid EXIF block with a DateTimeOriginal field. If the tag is absent the file is skipped — no fallback, file stays in input.

Videos — QuickTime mvhd creation date

Extension	Format
.mp4	MPEG-4
.mov	QuickTime Movie (iPhone, cameras)
.avi	Audio Video Interleave
.mkv	Matroska
.3gp	3GPP (Android)
.m4v	iTunes Video
.wmv	Windows Media Video
.flv	Flash Video
.webm	WebM
.ts / .mts / .m2ts	MPEG-2 Transport Stream

The creation_time field is read from the mvhd (Movie Header Box) inside the moov container. It is stored as UTC (seconds since 1904-01-01, Mac epoch) and converted to local time at runtime. If the moov box is absent the file is skipped.

Only extensions listed in the extensions config key are processed. You must explicitly include the extensions you want (e.g. ["jpg", "heic", "mp4", "mov"]).

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Development

Prerequisites

• WSL Ubuntu 24.04
• Rust stable (rustup)
• git config core.hooksPath .githooks (activate hooks)

Setup cross-compilation

bash scripts/setup-cross.sh

Common commands

cargo fmt
cargo clippy -- -D warnings
cargo test --lib            # unit tests
cargo test                  # all tests (unit + integration)
cargo zigbuild --release --target armv7-unknown-linux-musleabihf
bash scripts/build-spk.sh   # build the .spk package

Release

# 1. Update CHANGELOG.md
# 2. Run:
bash scripts/release.sh X.Y.Z
git push origin master --tags

GitHub Actions will cross-compile, package the .spk, and publish the release.

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Contributing

• Follow Conventional Commits
• All commits must pass cargo fmt --check, cargo clippy -D warnings, and unit tests (enforced by pre-commit hook)
• No binary test fixtures — generate them at runtime with tests/common/