[digiKam-users] Windows File Properties (such as tags) do not show in digiKam 7.2

[José Oliver-Didier]

Hello,

I am also a long time Windows Photo Gallery (WPG) user. I am slowly
migrating into using Digikam as my primary photo manager. I wrote a blog
post a while ago which details where WPG writes the metadata to in the file
and how to access it using Exiftool which may be of help -
https://jmoliver.wordpress.com/2017/02/12/accessing-windows-photo-gallery-metadata-using-exiftool/

- It is my understanding that for JPG files File Property Keyword metadata
is written back to file, unless of course the file or folder has a
read-only attribute enabled.
- Digikam should be able to read XPKeyword tags (legacy Windows XP metadata
locations), do make sure you have you have Exif.Image.XPKeywords for Read
and Write operations in Digikam's Metadata Configuration (From the menu
bar click on Settings -> Configure Digikam, click on Metadata and in the
Advanced tab click on "Tags" on the dropdown) as having "Image tags"
checkbox enabled in "Write this information to the Metadata".
- I recently stumbled upon an issue in which for some files the metadata
was not read by Digikam. After some research, I discovered that if images
were edited in WPG (Example: Straighten image, adjust contrast...) or WPG
"Geo Tags" added, certain oddly crafted XMP metadata would be written back
to the file which has been problematic to other applications such as
Digikam. In Digikam, the XMP file metadata will not be read and thus not
displayed. To correct the issue, I used Exiftool to "rebuild" the file XMP
so that Digikam could be able to read it. The problem and how I was able to
mitigate this issue is detailed in this Exiftool forum post -
https://exiftool.org/forum/index.php?topic=12367.msg66881

Hope this helps, and as always, when performing file modification
operations, do make sure you have a backup of your files. Test with a
subset of images first.

- J Oliver



On Fri, Jun 18, 2021 at 1:32 AM Gilles Caulier <caulier.gilles at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi,
>
> The Windows file properties depends of proprietary Windows database that
> we don't access or extended properties located in file system
>
> This is why you don't see this information in digiKam.
>
> Best
>
> Gilles Caulier
>
> Le jeu. 17 juin 2021 à 15:38, <mytea4-kde at yahoo.com> a écrit :
>
>> Hello – I am new to digiKam in the past year and have been searching the
>> documentation and websites for this issue with no luck.  Hopefully someone
>> with more experience can point me in the right direction.
>>
>>
>>
>> Over the past 20yrs, I have primarily used Windows File Explorer to tag
>> photos.   In the past I’ve also used, on occasion, Shutterfly local tools
>> and Windows Photo Gallery, both of which have become defunct.   When I view
>> pictures in File Explorer or Windows Photo Gallery, I see my tags in the
>> Details pane.   I can use the File Explorer search function to find all
>> pictures with those tags.
>>
>>
>>
>> Yesterday I discovered that for SOME pictures (on various cameras) the
>> tag/keyword had been written into exif field XPKeywords.  For a small set
>> of pictures, the tag is written into the IPTC Keywords field; I believe
>> these are pictures I tagged with digiKam or with ExifDateChanger Pro.   But
>> for the VAST MAJORITY of my pictures, the tag is just in the Windows File
>> Properties Tag/Keyword, not in exif or iptc.  I also used IrfanView to view
>> the exif & iptc information to try and verify what was present in the file
>> metadata.
>>
>>
>>
>> digiKam does not seem to read the Windows File Properties fields so I
>> can’t search for pictures by my tags.
>>
>> My pictures are taken on 10+ cameras and have various Exif versions over
>> the years, but the problem exists across all of these.   I have pictures
>> from 2020 with that XPKeywords field (with my tag in it) in the exif data,
>> and other pictures from 2020 without it (that I had never tagged), so this
>> isn’t just related to older or newer pictures.   The issue spans all
>> years, all cameras.
>>
>>
>>
>> I tried going to digiKam Tag Manager Tool > Read Tags from Image – but no
>> luck.
>>
>>
>>
>> Is this a bug in digiKam?   Or is there some other tool I need to use in
>> Windows to force it to write my tags into the exif (or iptc) keywords?
>>
>>
>>
>> To be clear, on the vast majority of my photos, the exif data does not
>> even include the XPKeywords field; when a tag had somehow been applied to
>> the exif data, it seems to have inserted that XPKeywords field.
>>
>>
>>
>> I really want to migrate all my photo organization work into digiKam, but
>> can’t do that until I learn how to get my tags to show up.
>>
>> Appreciate any and all advice or direction.
>>
>>
>>
>> Jaimi
>>
>
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