Using environment variables with PhotoStructure

September 11, 2020

You can use environment variables to configure PhotoStructure’s settings. The defaults.env file describes all of PhotoStructure’s settings, and how to change each with an environment variable. This file will also be found in your root app directory (from version 0.9.0 and later) if you’re using a PhotoStructure for Servers edition.

You can edit your settings.toml files and set environment variables.
Environment variables always override any values found in settings.toml.
As of version 2.1 (due to be released soon), PhotoStructure will read from one or more files specified in your PS_ENV_FILE environment variable. See below for details.

Environment variable overrides and settings.toml values don’t mix 🔗

PhotoStructure does not write environment variables overrides to your settings.toml files.

This is actually by design: previous versions of PhotoStructure didn’t discriminate between settings.toml values and environment variable overrides. As an example, if you had set PS_LOG_LEVEL=debug and then saved your settings via the web UI, that debug value would get persisted and become the new default log level.

This behavior was surprising and confusing to most beta users. Thanks to the principle of least astonishment, we decided that this was a “bug,” not a “feature,” and changed PhotoStructure to keep environment variable overrides separated from values stored in the settings.toml files.

Boolean settings 🔗

Boolean settings interpret either true or 1 as true, and false or 0 for false.

For example:

PS_VERIFY_FILE_COPIES=true

Converting between settings names and environment variable names 🔗

To avoid name-colliding with other software, all PhotoStructure environment variables are prefixed with PS_ and converted to UPPER_SNAKE_CASE.

Examples 🔗

The PS_LOG_LEVEL environment variable overrides the logLevel setting.
The PS_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable overrides the libraryPath setting.

Caution: upgrades to your environment variables are not automatic 🔗

When you upgrade to a new version of PhotoStructure, your prior settings.toml files are automatically migrated to contain the settings (and defaults) of the new version, while retaining your custom configurations.

We can’t do this for environment variables, though, as we don’t know where your environment variables are coming from, as they can be set in many different ways.

If you’re using environment variables, it’s up to you to review our release notes and make suitable settings changes when you upgrade. We mark any settings that are deleted, renamed, or have changed semantics with a 💔.

It also might be helpful to look at differences between version tags on github.

How to set environment variables per OS 🔗

PhotoStructure for Desktops on macOS 🔗

If you’re using PhotoStructure for Desktops on macOS, you can set environment variables with launchctl setenv.

To disable video transcoding, for example, open a terminal and run:

launchctl setenv PS_TRANSCODE_VIDEOS false

To get the current value, use launchctl getenv:

launchctl getenv PS_TRANSCODE_VIDEOS

To unset (and use PhotoStructure’s default), use launchctl unsetenv:

launchctl unsetenv PS_TRANSCODE_VIDEOS

PhotoStructure for Servers on Linux and macOS 🔗

Add environment variables to the relevant RC script for your shell. If you’re using bash, that’s ~/.profile:

export PS_LOG_LEVEL=info

PhotoStructure on Windows 🔗

Hit the Windows key, and type “environment”,
select “Edit the system environment variables” control panel,
click the Environment Variables... button in the bottom right, and
click the top New... button. Pick the top New... button if you’re using PhotoStructure for Desktops. If you’re running PhotoStructure as a system service, pick the bottom New... button.

Docker 🔗

With docker, use --env or --env-file :

docker run docker run --name photostructure --env PS_LOG_LEVEL=info ...

With docker-compose, use the environment or env_file configuration option

...
    environment:
      - "PS_LOG_LEVEL=info"
...

Support for `.env` files 🔗

Version 2023 and later added support for reading .env files via the new PS_ENV_FILE environment variable.

On startup, PhotoStructure will attempt to read .env files from the following paths:

/.psenv (if exists and is readable)
$HOME/.psenv (if exists and is readable)
$PS_ENV (if set to a full pathname that is readable)
$PS_ENV_FILE (if set to a full pathname that is readable)

PhotoStructure reads from $PSENV, $PS_ENV and $PS_ENV_FILE just to try to accommodate typos.

Note that if the same key is defined in multiple .env files, the last defined value will “win.”

`.env` file format 🔗

PhotoStructure reads standard .env-formatted files.

Any # outside of quotes is considered the start of a comment.
Values should be wrapped in double-quotes.
Newlines can be encoded as “\n”, or as actual newlines in the text file.
Save your .env as UTF8 without a BOM.

# This is a comment.
PS_LIBRARY_DIR="/path/to your/library"
PS_LOG_LEVEL="info"
# You can add backslash-n as a newline character like this
MULTI_LINE0="first line\nsecond line"
# Or if you prefer (but this is not valid shell):
MULTI_LINE1="this is 
also a valid
multi line value"

Note that parameter expansion or other shell constructs, like conditionals, are not supported.