[digiKam-users] database management and backup

[Remco Viëtor]

On lundi 26 septembre 2022 23:48:24 CEST Tyler Smith wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm a new user. So far I'm very happy with digikam, but before I get too far
> along, I'd like to figure out how to maintain backups of my database.
> 
> I'm using the sqlite database option, and I've set digikam to write info
> (captions, tags, gps) to file metadata. Do I need to worry about backing up
> the sqlite database, or is the info in it recoverable from the photo files
> themselves? My photos are on an external hard drive, which I backup on a
> second and (less frequently) third external hard drive.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Tyler

For me, the sqlite databases are in the root directory of the collection, so 
just backing up that whole directory tree takes care of the databases as well.

I see the sidecars more as a way to exchange with other programs and only 
incidently as an extra protection against trouble with the databases. So I do 
back up the databases alongside the images. It's only an extra 1.2GB (on a 
collection of >500 GB).

Hard to say if *in your case* the data written to the files are enough to 
restore the database, as it depends on your settings: writing metadata to 
files and use of sidecar files is configurable, and certain file types 
(especially raw files) can't be written to. I don't know the defaults for 
those settings.

Remco