somewhere

A command-line tool for macOS that collects your device location once per day, and updates a JSON file with it when it changes.

Usage

$ deno run --allow-run --allow-read --allow-write somewhere.ts

Setting a cron job or other method to run this regularly is left as an exercise to the reader.

Output

Creates a file named somewhere.json in the current working directory, with the format:

{
  "locations": [
    {
      "lat": 42.39,
      "lng": -83.09,
      "timestamp": 1714703163069
    }
  ]
}

Locations are listed in descending order. The JSON file is not updated if the location hasn’t changed since last run, or if the most recent location is < 24 hours old.

Dependencies

• Relies on a tiny macOS Shortcut to retrieve the device location; install it here. Simpler and caused fewer headaches than signing the app for CoreLocation access.
• deno ~1.41.3

Todo list

• Three options are configurable in code; the minimum update threshold, the log file name, and the location precision. It would probably be nice to make these command-line options.
• Preserving a bit of location privacy is just based on rounding to two decimal places right now, which makes it far more/less specific depending on the distance from the equator. Should probably use actual distance instead.
• The heuristic for “has the location changed” is simply “are the location values the same”. If your location falls on a border where e.g. your device may report 42.39° or 42.40° latitude at different times, this will probably cause frequent updates. Similar to the above point, should probably use an actual distance threshold.

License

MIT