Retrieving Posts via JSON file from Google+ Exporter

Retrieving Posts via JSON file from Google+ Exporter
This is shared only for those really, really interested in working with JSON files and NOT using your content in a blog or website.

Download/Export of all my Collections in G+ took about 2 1/2 hours for me today. I have a LOT of Collections. Then I downloaded all the images and that came to 6.5 GB and about 10 minutes for 11,597 of them. I did NOT bother to download/Export any of the Communities I have been in.

Here's a sample of what I could isolate for one post and then clean it up with a text editor to strip the extra code no longer needed:
>>>>
cobalt please
Date: 2018-01-22T15:40:39
Grossular, Yellow Crystals
A close view of yellow crystals in a fine specimen of unknown origin, [EDIT: I've now learned these are barite crystals on the green fluorite base. Discovered other specimens from the same locality when I went to this year's shows in Tucson.] seen through the glass display case at a venue of the Tucson Gem and Mineral show, Westward Look Resort, 2017.
Possible ID is yellow garnet in the grossular variety

[EDIT: yellow barite crystals!] with green fluorite as the matrix. It is unusual for me to miss getting the label so I can credit the ID, origin and vendor. This piece was displayed by the Sunnywood Collection.

https://www.mindat.org/min-10272.html

https://www.mindat.org/min-1755.html

#fluorite
#crystals
#yellowcrystal
#barite
#TucsonGemandMineralshow
>>>>
(I did not include the many comments here, because this is just a sample post.)
>>>>
NOTE: The posts themselves are found in a folder called google-plus-posts and the images are found in a separate folder called google-plus-images. When you get a JSON file exported for a Collection, you'll have to open it to make sure it's the Collection posts you want. I rename that file right away - in this case TucsonRocks2017.json .

In my text editor I could easier do a search by a word, or I could just browse for a post I wanted. In this case for a sample, I wanted one that had multiple links and many comments with links shared from friends.

Then I have to look for the post image the hard way - eek! The images that were shared with each post are NOT in the posts folder. For me, it was easier to find this particular crystals image in the Google Photos albums I've made. My post file shows the date and I can figure out from the JSON file where the image was stored. My images, all 11, 597 of them, were all stashed by the Google+ Exporter into hundreds of small folders that do not have a recognizable file name and there is no way to search through them.

So on the bright side, you get your posts and all your friends' comments are there and also links to content shared. That is one of the reasons I wanted most of my posts that I have in Collections. Great content and useful links are too much for me to just lose to the ether when G+ bails out.

You have to be creative to FIND your image that went with the post. On the bright side, you HAVE all your photos that were shared with posts but um, they are jumbled up every which way. What's more problematic is that you also end up with LOTS of photos that are not your photos. I think this happens because when other commenters share their photos in your post comments, blammo, they are also downloaded with your image files.

Any tips on matching posts with the images for the post? You can see I did it the hard way.

Today I used the TextEditor which is native to Mac and then stripped out a lot of code and huge lines of code I don't need. Then I copied into a WORD doc just to be able to use the "Find and Replace" tool to get all the content lined up and further refined. I'm going to try out a different text editor for Mac tonight because I want a more full-featured program. I hear Atom is the one to go for and it is free.