LifeTrace Usage Guide

Quick Start

Starting Services

After installation, you can start LifeTrace services in multiple ways:

Start All Services (Recommended):

python start_all_services.py

This will start:

• Screenshot recorder service
• OCR processor service
• Web API service
• Vector database service

Start Individual Services:

# Start recorder
python -m lifetrace_backend.recorder

# Start processor
python -m lifetrace_backend.processor

# Start OCR service
python -m lifetrace_backend.simple_ocr

# Start web server
python -m lifetrace_backend.server --port 8840

The services will:

• Automatically take screenshots at configured intervals
• Perform OCR text recognition on screenshots
• Store data in the vector database
• Provide REST API for search and retrieval

Project Structure

Understanding the project structure helps with customization and development:

LifeTrace_app/
├── lifetrace_backend/          # Core backend modules
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── __main__.py
│   ├── server.py               # Web API service
│   ├── models.py               # Data models
│   ├── config.py               # Configuration management
│   ├── storage.py              # Storage management
│   ├── simple_ocr.py           # OCR processing
│   ├── vector_service.py       # Vector service
│   ├── multimodal_*.py         # Multimodal services
│   ├── processor.py            # File processing
│   ├── recorder.py             # Screen recording
│   ├── heartbeat.py            # Service heartbeat
│   ├── rag_service.py          # RAG service
│   ├── retrieval_service.py    # Retrieval service
│   ├── sync_service.py         # Sync service
│   ├── utils.py                # Utility functions
│   └── templates/              # HTML templates
├── config/                     # Configuration files
│   ├── config.yaml
│   └── default_config.yaml
├── doc/                        # Documentation
├── front/                      # Frontend application
│   ├── components/             # React components
│   ├── services/               # API services
│   ├── public/                 # Static assets
│   └── package.json            # Frontend dependencies
├── debug/                      # Debug and diagnostic tools
├── requirements/               # Dependency files
│   ├── requirements.txt
│   ├── requirements_windows.txt
│   ├── requirements_macos.txt
│   ├── requirements_multimodal.txt
│   ├── requirements_rapidocr.txt
│   └── requirements_vector.txt
├── assets/                     # Static assets
├── start_all_services.py       # Main service launcher
├── init_database.py            # Database initialization
└── init_config.py              # Configuration initialization

Frontend Usage

Search Interface

LifeTrace provides a web frontend interface accessible via browser:

http://localhost:8840

Main features:

🔍 Search Box

• Enter keywords or natural language queries
• Support advanced search syntax
• Real-time search suggestions

📅 Time Filter

• Select date range
• Quick selection (today, yesterday, this week, this month)
• Custom time period

🖼️ Result Display

• Thumbnail preview
• Text content highlighting
• Timestamp display
• Click to enlarge

📊 Statistics Dashboard

• Usage time statistics
• Activity type distribution
• Heatmap display

Configuration Options

Screenshot Settings

Edit config.yaml file:

screenshot:
  # Screenshot interval (seconds)
  interval: 60
  # Image quality (1-100)
  quality: 85
  # Enable smart capture (detect screen changes)
  smart_capture: true
  # Storage path
  save_path: ./screenshots

OCR Settings

ocr:
  # OCR engine (rapidocr)
  engine: rapidocr
  # Language (ch, en, ch_en)
  language: ch_en
  # Enable text post-processing
  post_process: true

Search Settings

search:
  # Default number of results
  default_limit: 10
  # Maximum number of results
  max_limit: 100
  # Similarity threshold (0-1)
  similarity_threshold: 0.7

Command Line Tool

LifeTrace provides the lifetrace-cli command line tool:

# Search
lifetrace search "Python tutorial"

# View statistics
lifetrace stats

# Export data
lifetrace export --format json --output data.json

# Cleanup data
lifetrace cleanup --before 2025-09-01

Best Practices

1. Performance Optimization

• Adjust screenshot interval based on needs
• Regularly cleanup old data
• Use SSD storage for better performance

2. Privacy Protection

• Set blacklist for sensitive apps to avoid capturing private content
• Regularly backup data
• Consider encrypted storage

3. Storage Management

• Regularly check storage space
• Set automatic cleanup policies
• Use data compression

Contributing to LifeTrace

We welcome contributions from the community! Here's how you can get involved:

How to Contribute

1. 🍴 Fork the project - Create your own copy of the repository
2. 🌿 Create a feature branch - git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature
3. 💾 Commit your changes - git commit -m 'Add some amazing feature'
4. 📤 Push to the branch - git push origin feature/amazing-feature
5. 🔄 Create a Pull Request - Submit your changes for review

Areas to Contribute

• 🐛 Bug Reports - Help us identify and fix issues
• 💡 Feature Requests - Suggest new functionality
• 📝 Documentation - Improve guides and tutorials
• 🧪 Testing - Write tests and improve coverage
• 🎨 UI/UX - Enhance the user interface
• 🔧 Code - Implement new features and improvements

Development Guidelines

• Follow the existing code style
• Write clear commit messages
• Add tests for new features
• Update documentation as needed
• Keep pull requests focused and small

Next Steps

• Check FAQ for more tips
• Visit GitHub Repository to participate in development
• Join community discussions and feedback
• Explore Use Cases for inspiration