Using Digikam in a Linux/Mac/Windows environment

[Maik Qualmann]

To keep it brief, it's very easy to create different base collection paths for 
different operating systems.

First, set up a network collection on one operating system (it doesn't matter 
which one). For the other operating systems, simply add (append) another path 
to the ! existing one ! using the plus button in the digiKam collection 
settings.

https://docs.digikam.org/en/setup_application/collections_settings.html#setup-root-album-folders

Maik

Am Mittwoch, 12. November 2025, 20:37:04 Mitteleuropäische Normalzeit schrieb 
Jack Haverty:
> For the usual reasons, our IT environment contains a mix of computers 
> including Linux, Mac, and Windows desktops.  Digikam runs on all those 
> devices, so I've been figuring out the logistics of making it all work.  
> Success!  I figured I'd write it down in case someone else is trying to 
> do the same thing.
> 
> We have one machine (happens to be a Mac) which is the "master" Digikam 
> machine.  The actual photos all live on a NAS, which is configured as a 
> network collection.  All changes (adding new photos, tags, etc.) are 
> made on the Mac.  The 4 database files on the Mac (Digikam's .db files) 
> are then copied to each of the other machines.  I use Syncthing to make 
> that easy and automatic.
> 
> On each other machine, the goal is to make it possible to use Digikam to 
> search, retrieve, and use the Digikam database, but not to make any 
> changes such as adding photos to the collection or changing tags etc.  
>   All changes are done on the master Mac.
> 
> The challenge hs been dealing with the differences in naming conventions 
> on Windows, Mac, and Linux.
> 
> I tried various approaches with the "network collections" features of 
> Digikam, but didn't succeed.  On the Mac, the network collection was 
> acessible as "/Volumes/photo".   On Linux, I could easily mount the NAS 
> photo folder as /Volumes/photo as well, so the Linux Digikam could find 
> photos using the Mac database settings.
> 
> On windows however, I could mount the NAS photo collection as a virtual 
> disk (I used P: to indicate Photos).   But there was no obvious way to 
> create a link from /Volumes/photo to P: -- Windows uses \s, but Mac and 
> Linux like /s.   I tried, on the Mac, adding a path to the photo 
> collection for "P:\" but it wouldn't let me do that on the Mac.
> 
> ChatGPT gave me the answer, and it actually worked!   The steps are:
> 
> On each Windows device running Digikam:
> 
> 1/ Mount your NAS photo store as a virtual disk (I used P:), and set it 
> to reconnect when you log in so it's always accessible
> 2/ Using the command line, as Administrator, create a link -- "MKLINK /D 
> "\VOLUMES\PHOTO" "P:\"
> 
> Result - Digikam on Windows, using the database copied from the Mac, can 
> successfully access the photo files from the NAS.
> 
> This works, at least for now, because Windows apparently treats \ and / 
> as equivalent when trying to find a file.  So /Volumes/photo (from the 
> Mac database) gets used as \Volumes\photo (on Windows).
> 
> ChatGPT pointed me to several other ways to approach this problem. One 
> way was to use a database on the LAN rather than on the Mac.   I could 
> run MySQL, MariaDB, or such on the NAS, and keep the Digikam database 
> there, but I'd rather not complicate the picture with another device 
> needed to use Digikam for basic searching and browsing.   I also wanted 
> to avoid problems with situations such as multiple machines 
> simultaneously using the database, or "browsing" clients able to do 
> things like change tags thath the master put in.
> 
> There was another option to directly edit the Digikam database file to 
> add the Windows path directly, bypassing the checks that prevent adding 
> things like "P:\" while running on a Mac.   But that seemed risky and 
> might be undone by some future release of Digikam.
> 
> I tried using the new "Remap" feature of Digikam.  That works but only 
> in the case where each Digikam installation keeps its own database.  
> That's useful but not compatible with the approach of keeping a "master" 
> database on some particular machine.
> 
> If anyone's interested, my full conversation with the AI is here:
> https://chatgpt.com/share/6914da04-f3ac-8001-a52b-a68562611b25
> 
> There is still one quirk which can be worked around.
> 
> Whenever Digikam runs, it apparently changes something in the database 
> files.  So when I run Digikam on a Windows (or any) desktop, the local 
> database files are modified.  Syncthing tries real hard to avoid losing 
> data, and the locally modified database files will not be overwritten 
> when the "master" files on the Mac are changed.
> 
> It's easy to tell Syncthing to "Revert Local Changes" which makes the 
> master files overwrite the local ones on the Windows (or Linux) 
> machines.  But you have to remember to do that to avoid working with an 
> old Digikam database that won't have photos, tags, etc., from the latest 
> updates on the master.  I could also solve that problem by avoiding 
> Syncthing and just using rsync to force a copy of the master to each 
> other machine where Digikam will run.
> 
> Anybody have a better way...?
> 
> /Jack
> 
>