Skip to content
Sift

Tasks and Activity

Tasks and Activity is where you choose when each task runs and see what Sift has done. To open it, go to Settings > Tasks and Activity.

Come here to run a task now, change when it runs, choose what each import stage makes, or find out what happened to a file. The pane has three tabs.

The Tasks and Activity pane in Settings

The tabs

Section titled “The tabs”
  • Tasks: every task, its Edit and its Run now press and its When. A When is As files are imported, On a schedule, During quiet hours or Only when I press it, as each task offers. Under the tasks, Activity: what is running and what ran, with each task’s status, time left and progress, and the Task Queue. While a scan is still counting folders, the Scan row and every task after it show Not known until every folder is counted. A task that waits for a scan to read its files says Waiting for the scan to finish. When a network share holds the reading back, the Scan row names the library folders on that share. Run now on a bar opens that task’s row.
  • App History: everything Sift and you have done in your library, newest first. Select a name to open what it happened to.
  • Logs: a record of what Sift did. Read it first when something goes wrong.

On the Tasks tab

Section titled “On the Tasks tab”
  • Quiet hours: a stretch of each day when your computer is usually free. A task set to run during quiet hours waits for it to begin and pauses when it ends. Edit changes the hours.
  • Import tasks: Scan, Generate and Identify, the three things Sift does with each file as it’s imported, in the order Sift runs them. Each row says when it runs and what is still waiting for it; Edit opens the stage’s own settings. The count of files a stage left out opens them, each with why.
  • Scan: finds new, changed and removed files in your library folders.
  • Generate: creates thumbnails, hover previews, scrubber strips and fingerprints for new files.
  • Identify: recognizes faces, describes files for Smart Search and reads watermarks. Its settings hold the three recognition switches.
  • Other tasks: work Sift does for the library as a whole, such as finding duplicates and creating backups.
  • Folder-specific import settings: gives one library folder its own settings, or lets it follow the default. Edit beside a folder opens them.
  • Activity: what is running and what ran, under Library tasks and Other tasks. A task with nothing running says what waits and what starts it (48 waiting, runs as files are imported), or Up to date. It can also say how many files it left out (1 left out), which opens them. Time left says nothing for under a minute of work or for work nothing has started. Under it the Task Queue, twenty a page, with Options and Type to show one type of task.
  • Other settings: settings filed with the tasks that belong to no task above.

On the App History tab

Section titled “On the App History tab”
  • Show: Everything, or only the Decisions, each with its Undo.
  • Type: shows only one type of thing.
  • Action: shows only one action.
  • Undo and Undo all: take back a decision, or every decision one press made, while they still can.
  • Report: opens a task’s report: how many files it read, how long it took and on which device. Copy report copies it.
  • Decisions: App History showing only what was decided on Organize and what Sift filed by itself.
  • Saved to a device: App History showing only the copies someone saved to their own device.
  • How long tasks take: every task that ran over your library, from App History.

Reading and saving the log

Section titled “Reading and saving the log”
  • Show, on the Logs tab: the least serious line to show: Critical, Error, Warning, Info or Debug. Each choice also shows everything more serious than it.
  • Filter the log: shows only the lines holding the words you type.
  • Refresh: reads the newest lines.
  • Copy for a bug report: copies the lines on screen as they are, without redaction. Read the lines before you paste anywhere public.
  • Download log: saves every log whole as one zip file, whatever the screen is filtered to, without your personal details and secrets. In the Sift app the file holds the library’s log and the app’s own. In a browser it holds the library’s. The line under it, Download redacted log, says so. Attach this file to a bug report.

Tasks

Section titled “Tasks”

Automatic backup

Section titled “Automatic backup”

Saves your library’s records into a folder, and keeps the last few.

Generate

Section titled “Generate”

Generates thumbnails, hover previews, scrubber strips and fingerprints for new files.

  • Path: Settings > Tasks and Activity > Generate
  • When it runs: As files are imported
  • Choices: As files are imported, During quiet hours, Only when I press it
  • Who sets it: an admin, for everyone on this Sift

Identify

Section titled “Identify”

Recognizes faces, describes files for Smart Search and reads watermarks.

Section titled “Describe files for Smart Search”

Describes new files, so Smart Search can find them by what they show.

Identify faces

Section titled “Identify faces”

Looks for faces in new files and matches them to your People.

Read watermarks

Section titled “Read watermarks”

Checks new files for a watermark, so the Sites on your files stay up to date.

Scan

Section titled “Scan”

Finds new, changed and removed files in your library folders.

  • Path: Settings > Tasks and Activity > Scan
  • When it runs: As files are imported
  • Choices: As files are imported, During quiet hours, Only when I press it
  • Who sets it: an admin, for everyone on this Sift

Look up new files on stash-boxes

Section titled “Look up new files on stash-boxes”

Looks up new files on the stash-boxes you added, once their fingerprints are ready.

Find duplicate files

Section titled “Find duplicate files”

Compares the fingerprints of your files to find exact and near duplicates.

Generate music fingerprints

Section titled “Generate music fingerprints”

Lets Sift match files that share a song. Generating one reads the file’s sound track.

Name songs with AcoustID

Section titled “Name songs with AcoustID”

Sends each file’s music fingerprint and length to AcoustID, never the file, to name the song it uses.

Find shoots

Section titled “Find shoots”

Finds runs of one creator’s photos taken together, to suggest as Photo Sets.

Suggest People from your folders

Section titled “Suggest People from your folders”

Suggests a person for a folder that holds one person’s files, for you to confirm.

Settings

Section titled “Settings”

How often

Section titled “How often”

How many days apart the backups are. Your media files aren’t copied.

Time of day

Section titled “Time of day”

When the backup starts on the day it falls due, in this device’s time zone.

Log detail

Section titled “Log detail”

Normal records what happened. Detailed also records each step, and fills the log faster.

Hide personal details in the log

Section titled “Hide personal details in the log”

Hides the names in file paths, usernames and email addresses as lines are written. Passwords, cookies and keys are always hidden.

Maximum log size

Section titled “Maximum log size”

The most disk space the log may use. Sift deletes the oldest entries as it fills.

The default holds about two weeks at normal detail, counting the current file and the older ones kept in the same folder. The log never grows past this size.

Generate fingerprints

Section titled “Generate fingerprints”

Generates the fingerprint that finds duplicates and matches a file on the stash-boxes.

When off, new files aren’t fingerprinted, so they can’t be matched on the stash-boxes or found as duplicates. To catch up, turn this on and choose Generate now.

Generate hover previews

Section titled “Generate hover previews”

Generates the short clip that plays when you hover over a video.

Hover previews use the most CPU, so turning them off saves the most on a busy scan. Videos still play in full when you open them.

Hover preview length

Section titled “Hover preview length”

A long video is sampled across its whole length. A short one plays from the beginning.

Both cut to a new moment every 1.5 seconds. Changing this generates every preview again in the background.

Generate scrubber strips

Section titled “Generate scrubber strips”

Generates the row of frames you see while dragging along a video.

When off, the scrubber still works but can’t show where you are dragging to.

Repair videos that stutter when skipping

Section titled “Repair videos that stutter when skipping”

Some files store their sound far from their picture, which makes skipping around stutter.

Sift keeps a corrected copy and plays that instead. Your own file is never changed. Each copy is a whole second file, so turning this off stops new ones and keeps the ones already made. To free that space, delete them in Settings > Maintenance.

Create Photo Sets from folders

Section titled “Create Photo Sets from folders”

A folder with 10 or more photos and no videos becomes a Photo Set named after the folder.

Create Photo Sets from ZIP files

Section titled “Create Photo Sets from ZIP files”

A ZIP file with 10 or more photos inside becomes a Photo Set named after the file.

Quiet hours start

Section titled “Quiet hours start”

In this device’s time zone, which may differ from yours.

Quiet hours end

Section titled “Quiet hours end”

Work set to run during quiet hours pauses at this time. An end earlier than the start runs past midnight, which is the usual case.

Keep this device awake

Section titled “Keep this device awake”

Stops this device from going to sleep on its timer while quiet-hours work runs.

Only while work set to run during quiet hours is waiting or running. The screen can still turn off, and closing the lid or choosing Sleep still puts this device to sleep.

Detailed download log

Section titled “Detailed download log”

Records every step of each download in the log.

Create Photo Sets from shoots

Section titled “Create Photo Sets from shoots”

A shoot is a run of one creator’s photos taken together: the same place, light and outfit. When on, each one Sift finds becomes a Photo Set.

When off, each suggested shoot waits in Organize under Shoots until you choose Create Photo Set. When on, every shoot becomes a Photo Set as soon as Sift finds it. Each one is recorded in History, where you can undo it.

Find usernames in photo details

Section titled “Find usernames in photo details”

When a file is named with a Site’s ID for a username, Sift looks in the photo’s details for the name.

Sift checks only two fields, Artist and ImageDescription, in a few of that username’s photos. It checks them only when no username in your library matches the ID. It never reads a location or anything else in the file. When off, those files wait until you add the ID to a username yourself, and nothing already added is undone.

Add usernames from filenames

Section titled “Add usernames from filenames”

When a filename shows the Site and username a file came from, as downloaders name them, Sift adds that Site and username to the file.

When off, Sift ignores filenames, and Sites and usernames already added stay. It uses only the name, so it adds almost no time to a scan, and it never adds People.