Moving thumbnails.db to an external drive

[Andrew Goodbody]

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