I think you’ve hit the nail on the head so to speak…it’s just too small/custom a thing for anyone to have built a dedicated tool it seems. In the end I am looking at using my file manager (nautlius) to automatically run a custom exiftool/bash script on chosen files so I can just click and rename/fix metadata etc as I browse through the files. Probably good enough for now.

💯 ! I been considering git-annex too which might let me treat all the photos like any git repo without the bloat.

So git-annex should let you just pull down the files you want to work on, make your changes, then push them back upstream. No need to continuously sync entire collection. Requires some git knowledge and wading through git-annex docs but the walkthrough is a good place for an overview: https://git-annex.branchable.com/walkthrough/

You can do the same with GitLab as another option, it supports custom domains too.

I seem to get pop-up notifications for free in GNOME/Fedora by setting these levels in /etc/UPower/UPower.conf:

UsePercentageForPolicy=true
PercentageLow=50
PercentageCritical=20
PercentageAction=10

I think you can also configure the system to take action when it reaches the lowest level with e.g.

# The action to take when "TimeAction" or "PercentageAction" above has been
# reached for the batteries (UPS or laptop batteries) supplying the computer
CriticalPowerAction=PowerOff

However I don’t know how to get these GNOME “Power” notifications to play an audible sound (without turning on notification sounds for ALL notifications). The best I could find is this: David Bazile / gaudible · GitLab

There’s talk of better control of sound notifications in GNOME 47+, but looks like nothing much has landed yet: Notifications in 46 and beyond – GNOME Shell & Mutter

Home Assistant can do shared lists and (I’ve not used them) but has some recipe add-ons. There are apps for android and iOS. It can also take care of managing the dynamic IP. Then if you want to explore home automation in future you’re ready to go.