Organize Backups with
Antigravity

In the age of high-resolution smartphone cameras and daily content creation, mobile storage fills up fast. When you hit the storage ceiling, copying your photos and videos to an external hard drive is the best way to free up space.

But copy-pasting your phone's camera roll usually creates a "digital junk drawer"—a single, flat folder containing thousands of unorganized files. Camera JPEGs, MP4 videos, social media downloads, and random screenshots are all mixed together with cryptic filenames.

Sorting this mess manually by year and month can take hours of tedious drag-and-drop work. Fortunately, you can automate the entire process using Antigravity, an agentic AI coding assistant. You don't need to write code, build scripts, or run complex commands—you simply tell Antigravity what you want using plain English.

Here is the simple step-by-step guide to organizing your phone backup using Antigravity.

The Strategy: Let the AI Read the True Metadata

When you copy files to a computer, the operating system often overwrites the file's "Date Created" or "Date Modified" with the date of the copy operation. If you sort by these dates, your archive will show all photos as taken on the day you backed them up.

To solve this, Antigravity automatically digs beneath the surface to read the file's true metadata: 1. Camera EXIF Data: For photos, it reads the internal camera timestamp (DateTimeOriginal), which is embedded the moment the shutter clicks. 2. Video Container Metadata: For videos, it queries the internal container header for the creation_time. 3. Filename Parsing: If the metadata is stripped (common for social media downloads), it falls back to parsing date patterns in standard filenames (like PXL_YYYYMMDD_... or YYYY-MM-DD-...).

By handling this technical complexity behind the scenes, Antigravity ensures your photos land in the exact month they were taken.

Step 1 — Open Your Backup Folder in Antigravity

Begin by selecting your phone backup folder in the Antigravity workspace manager. This establishes the folder as the active project.

Once your folder is open, you will see a chat interface. This is where you will interact with the assistant.

Step 2 — Input the Master Prompt

You don't need to write code or scripts. You simply paste the following Master Prompt into the Antigravity chat:

Scan the metadata of all photos and videos.

Create a folder structure by Year > Month (e.g., 2026/05_May).

Move the files into their respective folders.

Identify any screenshots and move them to a separate Archive/Screenshots folder.

Show me the plan before you execute.

Step 3 — Review the Implementation Plan

Because you requested to see the plan first, Antigravity will scan the folder and generate a detailed preview. Behind the scenes, the AI: * Scans all JPEGs for camera EXIF markers. * Queries video formats to retrieve their true creation times. * Automatically identifies screenshots (by detecting .png formats, searching for "screen" in filenames, or locating images that lack camera details but match a phone's tall screen aspect ratio). * Simulates the exact number of files that will move into each Year and Month folder.

Review the summary presented by Antigravity. It will show you the exact distribution of files (e.g. 14 files to 2022, 107 files to 2023, etc.) and confirm that no screenshots were misclassified.

Step 4 — Approve and Execute

Once you verify that the plan is correct, simply type "approved" or click the approval button in the chat.

Antigravity will instantly execute the organization. If your files and directories are on the same partition (like an external hard drive), the move is virtually instantaneous, completing in under 10 seconds.

The Results: From Chaos to Order

In our case study, all 1,888 photos and videos were successfully categorized.

Within each Year folder, month directories are automatically named with numeric prefixes to maintain correct sorting in File Explorer (e.g. 01_January, 02_February):

Finally, opening any month folder reveals your media files perfectly sorted and preserved with high-quality thumbnails:

The final file distribution was organized as follows:

No media files were left loose in the root directory, leaving the backup database perfectly archived.

💡 Quick Tips for Mobile Backups

• Use USB Transfers: Avoid downloading your backup from compressed cloud services, which often strip EXIF metadata. Connect your phone directly to your computer with a USB cable to copy raw DCIM folders.
• Iterative Sorting: You can run the exact same prompt again next month. Antigravity will scan the folder, skip already organized directories, and only sort new files dropped in the root.
• Separate Screenshots Proactively: If your phone supports it, change your settings to save screenshots in a separate directory from your camera roll, keeping your memories timeline clean.