very confused

[Mark]

 An advantage of the Collection approach is that your folders do not have to be grouped together on disk. You can have albums like this:
Album        LocationBirds            c:\users\fred\pictures\birdsAnimals        d:\Images\anythingTrees            e:\data\assorted\stuff\trees
So they can be spread across your folders / disks. I'm not recommending that, it just lets you do that. I'd keep things together on disk for easy backups of your images. Remember the images themselves live on the disk, NOT in the database!
Enjoy,Mark
    On Sunday, August 3, 2025 at 04:59:57 AM EDT, Andrew Goodbody <ajg02 at elfringham.co.uk> wrote:   

 On 03/08/2025 01:10, futurevnv wrote:
> I'm trying to learn how to use Digikam because it looks like it has a 
> good finder for similar/duplicate images.
> 
> 
> However, I'm finding myself entirely frustrated trying to figure out how 
> to use it.  The thing that frustrates me is the idea of "albums."

An album is just a directory on the disk. A collection is the root 
directory that digikam will look at. You will see all directories under 
that root as albums. digikam's view is the filesystem. If you make 
changes in digikam, you are making changes to the filesystem.

> Intuitively, I would expect this program to give me a folder tree view 
> window from which to select which folders to include in a search for 
> duplicates, and then a result window from which to select which 
> duplicates to keep and which ones to delete.
> 
> 
> Instead there is a complicated system of "albums" wherein folders are 
> imported or watched using a database I think?
> 
> 
> I can't seem to easily select which folders I want to search in without 
> going through a huge, complicated and risky process of folder and file 
> management which might delete and destroy the folders I store my images 
> in.  I DO NOT WANT the program to make any copies into new folders on my 
> OS drive nor do I want it to start automatically assuming the folders I 
> input last time are still there since much of my work is to be done on 
> removable drives.

It is not complicated nor risky. It will not do anything you do not tell 
it to. The main thing is not to attempt to 'import' the directories you 
want to work on, that is a concept for downloading photos from an 
external source such as your camera.

> I don't want the program to move, cut, copy, or delete anything without 
> my express permission.  However, I have already lost one huge folder due 
> to the difficulty in managing settings for this program.  Thank goodness 
> I had a backup on another drive but it could have been a disaster.
> 
> 
> How do I run the program and easily tell it when and where I want it to 
> look for duplicates without having to go through hundreds of files, 
> folders and disks trying to figure out what to include or exclude?  It 
> seems very laggy trying to constantly import or rescan so many folders 
> just to make the selection even before image comparisons are made 
> especially with folders that could contain as many as 100,000 images. 
> Perhaps I am asking for a folder tree with checkboxes?
> 
> 
> What is my brain missing here.  I would assume the programmers of this 
> software have a good idea what they're doing, but I'm just not seeing in 
> any intuitive way how this program is actually supposed to work.

digikam is a program for managing photo collections. It is not a quick 
and dirty utility that can just be used for doing isolated actions.

Add your removable drives as removable collections, let digikam scan 
them to build its database, then you will be able to work on them and do 
things like the duplicate detection. As removable collections digikam 
will still be happy when those drives are not present.

> Thanks for any replies.
> 

  
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