[digiKam-users] Migrating from Digikam 4 to 6

[J D]

Hi,

Thanks for all your suggestions!

It is interesting and also good to see that so much has happened with
Digikam. I mean, my upgrade of Linux was from year 2017 to year 2020, and I
don't remember that my previous such upgrade would have brought such
changes regarding Digikam.

I have the old installation and one copy of the photos on an old-style hard
disk and the old installation and another copy of photos on a brand new
SSD. It seems that I need to go back to the old disk and the old system to
do the move to sidecar files and then re-sync the old and the new disk. I
may actually end up creating a small test album and try the migration with
that first.

And yes, I do have incremental back-up system.

BR,
angrdtsk

la 16. tammik. 2021 klo 22.17 Rob Dueckman (duke at dukey.org) kirjoitti:

> There are many ways to skin a cat when it comes to upgrading your copy of
> Digikam.
>
> As you are upgrading from a pretty old version, these are the steps >I<
> would do things in:
>
> 1) make sure you have a current backup of your photos.  From your earlier
> messages, it appears you don't like to write the metadata to your photos as
> it messes with your backups, so I imagine you are doing incremental
> backups.  Just make sure everything is up do date with your backup first
>
> 2)  configure Digikam to write all metadata into sidecar files (.xmp)
>  Once done, sync the metadata for all your photos to disk.  This will take
> a bit of time, and will write a .xmp file for every photo
>
> 3)  MOVE your digikam database files and digikam settings folder to a safe
> place.  You want these to be re-created when you run digikam the next time
>
> 4) download the appimage for the current 7.2 release candidate for Digikam
> and mark it executable (either command line or viewing the properties from
> the desktop)
>      You can find the latest release candidate at
> https://files.kde.org/digikam/    You will want the X86-64 file as you
> are running a current linux distribution
>
> 5) Run the appimage (double click on the appimage icon from your file
> browser on the desktop) and perform the first run configuration pointing
> digikam at your photo library.  Once it starts scanning photos, take a
> break. It might take a while
>
> 6) if everything looks good, uninstall your old copy of digikam, and
> remove the old database files and settings folder.
>
> 7) In case things don't work, restore your original database files and
> digikam settings folder and appimage file  to revert back to the old
> version.
>
> 8) configure Digikam settings and update for your preferred metadata
> settings.  As .xmp files are quite small, it might be acceptable to write
> to .xmp files in addition to the database in the future as it won't affect
> your backup size too dramatically.
>
> 9) for bonus points and if you're bored enduring a COVID lockdown, scan
> your entire collecton for faces and be prepared to name a lot of people.
>
>
> Again, this is how I would upgrade my digikam as it gives the ability to
> roll back at any point until you remove the old database and configuration
> files.
>
> Rob
>
>
> On Sat, 2021-01-16 at 15:25 +0200, J D wrote:
>
> Hi, and thanks for quick reply,
>
> I got Digikam 6.4 along with a Linux distro, so updating it may not be
> that simple.
>
> Do I have any options in addition to using the migration tool?
>
> What would be the preferred (hopefully future-proof) solution for this
> case?
>
> BR,
> angrdtsk
>
> la 16. tammik. 2021 klo 15.13 Gilles Caulier (caulier.gilles at gmail.com)
> kirjoitti:
>
> Le sam. 16 janv. 2021 à 14:01, J D <angrdtsk at gmail.com> a écrit :
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > I lately installed a new Linux distribution, and along with that change,
> got new version of Digikam (4 -> 6.4). How can I import the meta-data
> created using the old one to the new one?
> >
> > The meta-data is in a database file. I don't like the idea of embedding
> it into the picture files because that way, changes in meta-data would mean
> changes in picture files, and that would complicate making back ups.
>
> If you use XMP sidecar files (See option in DK/Setup/Metadata panel),
> you will not touch image files as well.
>
> >
> > I found a dialog for migration in the new Digikam, but got immediately
> confused, as it seems to require me to move (or copy, that was unclear) the
> pictures from a directory to another along with the migration. There are
> roughly 35000 pictures taking 475 GB of space so proceeding with that
> dialog is not something I will try before I know better what is going
> happen and why.
>
> In all cases, if you use database migration tool, do not migrate to
> 6.4 release, but to 7.2. release candidate available here :
>
> https://files.kde.org/digikam/
>
> Best
>
> Gilles Caulier
>
>
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