Source
Where it came from
“iPhoto Library 2011”
Its type, original location, date processed, file count, unreadable items and notes become part of the archive record.
An experimental, local-first project
Your memories are everywhere.
Memory Farm brings the story back together.
A lifetime of digital history is scattered across old drives, phones, camera cards, cloud exports and forgotten folders. Memory Farm is trying to preserve the evidence, recover the connections and keep the resulting archive understandable and owned by the people it belongs to.
The archive problem
The files may survive. The context often doesn’t.
Old CDs and DVDs. Ageing computers. External drives. iPhoto and Apple Photos libraries. Google Photos. Scans, recordings, documents, messages and camera cards. A life can be spread across all of them.
Storage is only part of the problem. Who is in the photograph? Which trip was this? Why did these files belong together? Those connections can disappear long before the files do.
A different kind of archive
Memory Farm doesn’t require your archive to already be organised.
Old drives
Photo libraries
Cloud exports
Scans & documents
Recordings
Forgotten folders
MemoryFarmreconcile · enrich · preserve
Master archive
Apple Photos
Google Photos
NAS & backup
It is not just about copying files. Memory Farm treats each collection as a Source, learns what it can from it and keeps the source of that knowledge visible.
Sources and enrichment
A source is more than a folder.
A CD, an old computer, a photo library or a Google Takeout export each has a history of its own. Memory Farm should record where a collection came from, what it contained, what could be read and what it contributed to the archive.
Representation
A particular copy
The same photograph may appear on a CD, a backup drive, iPhoto and Google Photos. Exact copies can be reconciled without losing their individual origins.
Enrichment
What that source knows
iPhoto may know an album and capture date. A phone may know location. A family member may know the people. Each is preserved as its own evidence.
Source → adapter → artefacts + observations + relationships + source provenance
From files to memories
Build understanding without losing the path back.
- SourceThe collection it came from: a drive, library, phone or export.
- ArtefactThe underlying photograph, file, recording or document.
- ObservationA date, location, caption or signal—always linked to where it came from.
- EpisodeA candidate group of related evidence around a time or event.
- MemoryContext confirmed, corrected or added by a person.
- StoryA regeneratable account grounded in the record.
The story is not the archive. It is one way of reading it.
Evidence, not invention
AI can suggest. Evidence decides.
Memory Farm should be able to show why it believes something: the artefacts, observations, people’s corrections and relationships that support a suggestion. A fluent explanation is not proof, and an inference is not a fact.
Original evidenceSource-specific metadataMachine observationHuman-confirmed knowledgeGenerated narrative
The human record
Preserve the context while someone still knows the story.
Family archives hold more than photographs. They contain names, places, relationships and moments that only a few people may still be able to explain. Memory Farm is intended to give that knowledge a careful home alongside the evidence.
An archival collection
Index first. Consolidate when you choose.
Memory Farm should be able to examine collections in their existing locations without demanding a migration. Later, it may help build a durable archival collection: originals, checksums, metadata, provenance, simple catalogues and human-readable documentation in a form that remains useful without Memory Farm.
Family_Archive/ ├── originals/ ├── metadata/ sources · artefacts · observations ├── catalogue/ simple, portable index ├── reports/ summaries and unresolved items ├── MANIFEST-SHA256.txt └── README.txt
Built to survive
Your memories should outlive the software that organised them.
Originals, untouched
Keep original artefacts, checksums and source information alongside what is learned from them.
Provenance that travels
Preserve durable metadata, confirmed identities and event relationships with a clear route back to the source.
Local-first and open
Keep core control with the people the archive belongs to, using portable formats and replaceable components.
Stored your way
Keep an archive on a NAS, drives, cloud storage, M-DISC or cold storage—without depending on one product to understand it.
If Memory Farm disappears one day, your memories shouldn’t disappear with it.
Works with existing apps
Memory Farm can be the archive without needing to become your photo app.
Apple Photos, Google Photos and other familiar tools can remain part of everyday life. Memory Farm’s role is to preserve the deeper record and its context, not replace every interface you already use.
The current experiment
Give Memory Farm a messy folder of digital history.
First comes safe inventory: originals untouched, duplicate detection, provenance and metadata. Then relationships, candidate episodes and human correction. Over time, that can become a richer archive.
In development · open-source direction
Memory Farm is experimental. It does not yet reconstruct a complete life history, identify every person or event, or guarantee that machine-generated interpretations are correct.
Join the Farm
Interested in the work?
Ask for more information, follow the build, contribute a perspective or tell us why preserving a digital archive matters to you.