Moving thumbnails.db to an external drive

[Daniel Bauer]

Am 09.08.26 um 20:20 schrieb Ronald ORENSTEIN:
> Thanks for this. However, would it be possible simply to copy the file 
> to the external drive and then tell Digikam to point to the new location?
> 
> My thumbnails.db file is now over 35 GB, space I really need to reclaim 
> on my MacBook hard drive!
> 
> Ronald Orenstein 1825 Shady Creek Court Mississauga, ON L5L 3W2 Canada 
> ronorenstein.blogspot.com <ronorenstein.blogspot.com>
> 

That is exactly what Andrew described. In the digikamrc file you tell 
Digikam the new location.

However I think an external drive is subobtimal, unless you are 
absolutely sure that it is always connected and mounted when you use 
digikam, which I doubt with a laptop...

I don't know exactly what happens when the database files is not present 
in the path you entered. I /guess/ digikam will create a new one 
somewhere, create all the thumbs again and probably overwrite your 
digikamrc file.

Think about this when deciding where to place the database file.

In my opinion better approach:

I'd personally rather move some rarely used photos/videos to that 
external drive, and keep the database file where it is.

You simply create a new "main album" folder on that drive, connect that 
drive, go to settings in digikam -> collections -> collection on 
external drive, and point to that "main album" there.

Then within digikam you can simply move the folders (albums) to there.
With this you make sure your database is always available on the laptop 
itself, and the only thing that happens when you forget to plug the 
external drive, is that the files are not available, but you still have 
all the thumbnails visible, and no damage is done.



>> On Jul 31, 2026 at 12:45 PM, <Andrew Goodbody 
>> <mailto:ajg02 at elfringham.co.uk>> wrote:
>>
>> I do not see a way to do this from within digikam so I would try this:
>>
>> 1) Exit digikam
>> 2) Copy thumbnails.db to new location.
>> 3) Find your digikamrc file (on Linux it is ~/.config/digikamrc but I am
>> not sure where it would be on a Mac but this is documented somewhere)
>> and take a backup copy.
>> 4) Edit digikamrc in a text editor and alter the path for the entry
>> 'Database Name Thumbnails', which is in the section headed '[Database
>> Settings]', so that it points to the new location of thumbnails.db
>> 5) Start digikam and ensure thumbnails are working OK, maybe add an
>> image so that the thumbnails database will be updated.
>> 6) Exit digikam
>> 7) Check access time or just the size in bytes of thumbnails.db in new
>> location to ensure that was the one being used.
>> 8) If all is OK delete thumbnails.db from original location.
>>
>> I am not sure how stable this is and whether anything would cause
>> digikam to overwrite the change to digikamrc but I think it should be OK.
>>
>> Andrew
>>
>> PS Not tested and you should proceed at your own risk. YMMV
>>
>> On 31/07/2026 14:58, Ronald Orenstein wrote:
>> > My thumbnails.db file is now 35GB in size, and I would like to move it  
>> > to an external SSD.  I run Digikam on a mac, and the SSD is formatted in  
>> > ExFAT.  Can this be done, and if so, how?
>> >  
>> > Thanks in advance for any help!
>> >  
>> > Ron Orenstein
>>

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