Importing directories

[Andrew Goodbody]

On 10/10/2025 23:33, post at frank-lautenbach.de wrote:
> When I run Import->Directories, the import begins. How can I determine 
> that the import has been executed (completed)?

My first question about Import is, are you sure that this is what you 
want to do? I do not think that I have imported any of the 185,000 or so 
photos I have in digiKam.

In digiKam's view of the world, when you import images they are copied 
from the source location into a destination that is in the tree of 
directories under a 'Collection' that digiKam knows about. So unless you 
actually want to make a copy of all those images then 'Import' is not 
the action you want to be using.

For me I have a single 'Collection' that points to the directory which 
holds all the images I want digiKam to manage, all in appropriate 
sub-directories. When I want to add images, they are placed in a 
directory in the hierarchy under the root of my 'Collection' using my 
file manager to copy from my SD-card. As I have 'Scan for new items on 
start up' enabled, this is all I have to do as digiKam automatically 
finds the new photos on start up and then they are ready to be worked 
with. Otherwise there is a menu entry under 'Tools' which is 'Scan for 
new items' that will do the same thing. In both cases a background task 
is started and its progress can be seen in the status bar to the lower 
right of the digiKam window.

So I would advise you to make your life easy and keep all your images in 
a directory hierarchy under a single directory and have that as a single 
'Collection' in digiKam. However if that does not work for you and you 
want to be able to add a number of different directory hierarchies then 
you can also do that by making each one a separate 'Collection' in digiKam.

Remember that digiKam is showing you a view of your file system. The 
database is there mostly to make operations quicker although it 
obviously also stores any metadata that cannot be written to the images 
or sidecars, or that you have told it not to.

But to answer your actual question if you still want to know that, then 
I am sorry but I do not know, as I said above I do not use that action 
at all. It may be the copy operation was so quick that you did not see 
anything. Otherwise there may be a background task showing its progress 
in the lower right of the window.

Andrew