[digiKam-users] How to copy DK databases?

[Vlado Plaga]

Hi Louis,

just stumbling over your message while looking for something different, 
database related... will post that question soon.

A reliable way to recover your Digikam database would probably be to 
create a user "oldme", replace this user's new home directory with a 
copy of your old home directory (containing at least the digikam config 
files with the database, and making sure to give matching uid with 
"chown -R oldme /home/oldme"). The pictures should be in the same path 
they were in before. Now start digikam as user "oldme" and see if 
everything is fine.

 From there on there are several options:

1. Once you identified where the database file sits, you can simply copy 
that and the digikam configuration (probably under /home/oldme/.config) 
to your current user's home (again making sure the uids match).

2. or let digikam write all metadata to the pictures (good as a backup 
option) and rescan to recreate the database as your current user.

3. or migrate to a proper MySQL (MariaDB) database, as described in 
https://web.archive.org/web/20191206193718/https://scribblesandsnaps.com/2018/10/19/use-digikam-with-a-nas-and-mariadb/ 
(original was under 
https://userbase.kde.org/Digikam/Using_digiKam_with_MySQL ). I've been 
using the database method for several years now, mainly in order to be 
able to use digikam from two different computers on the same network 
(desktop and laptop). It was easy enough for me to do, since I got 
familiar with MySQL through my job. It is working well most of the time 
(especially since I have better faster wifi on my new laptop), but 
actually I invested more time in setting this up, than I've actually 
been using digikam on the laptop computer...

I hope this helps,

Vlado

Am 23.02.21 um 18:07 schrieb Louis A Turk:
> Hi fellow DK users,
>
> Several months ago I bought a new computer with a SSD. I install Linux 
> Mint 20.1 on the SSD. I also took the HD out of the old computer, and 
> installed it on the new computer. Then I copied most of the data from 
> the old HD to the new SSD. I don't know what version of DK was 
> installed on the HD, but I've just installed DK 7.2.0 rc on the SSD. I 
> have many thousands of photos (13 years worth) on the old HD. The 
> photos are all in DK's sqlite databases. How can I copy those 
> databases to the SSD? And what pitfalls should I watch out for in 
> doing so? Many thanks in advance for your help.
>
> Lou
>
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