Agent skill · ma08
iphone-media-archive
Backup-first iPhone photo/video archiving to an external drive. Use when creating or verifying a Finder-browsable raw archive from an iPhone, iOS backup, or libimobiledevice backup before any phone media deletion or cleanup.
What it needs
About 2k tokens when loaded.
What this skill does
iPhone Media Archive Overview Use this skill for backup-first iPhone media archive work where the durable deliverable is a raw Finder-browsable photo/video folder on an external drive. Never delete media from the phone until a raw archive has been verified and the user gives a separate explicit cleanup go/no-go. Workflow 1. Confirm the external drive is mounted, writable, and has enough free space. 2. Diagnose any existing archive folders before writing into them. 3. Create or verify a pre-cleanup iPhone backup on the external drive. Prefer direct idevicebackup2 backup <external-destination> when Mac internal storage is tight. 4. Verify backup finalization before using it: Status.plist exists and has SnapshotState=finished. Manifest.plist is a valid plist. Manifest.db opens read-only with SQLite immutable mode and PRAGMA quickcheck returns ok. 5. Build a raw media plan from Manifest.db plus backed-up Media/PhotoData/Photos.sqlite. Use only raw Media/DCIM/... backup files for the Finder-browsable archive. Use Photos.sqlite ZASSET.ZDATECREATED mapped by ZDIRECTORY + ZFILENAME for capture-date ordering. Use same-stem matching for Live Photo MOV files and AAE sidecars. Treat backup file mtimes as weak fallback evidence, not capture dates. 6. Run a dry-run extraction report before copying. 7. Copy selected older media to a new date-organized archive folder on the external drive. 8. Verify count, size, extension distribution, capture-date range, and sample still/video decodability. 9. Stop for user cleanup approval. Do not clear Recently Deleted unless the user explicitly asks after verification. Scripts Use bundled scripts from scripts/: verify-iphone-backup-manifest.sh <backup-root> [out-dir] Read-only backup integrity and media manifest summary. Uses SQLite immutable mode for ExFAT/removable-drive compatibility. …
How to use it
Reference it in AdaL, Claude Code, Cursor or any coding agent — nothing to install:
@skills ma08/iphone-media-archive