How to use multiple photo libraries with DigiKam

I have always liked the multiple libraries feature in Mac OS X Photos app. Which is something that DigiKam lacks, even in DigiKam-7. But not anymore 😉

Updated: 2022.10.17:

Add MacOS support.

Intro:

We are going to write a small BASH script to achieve our goal which makes DigiKam capable of managing multiple photo libraries. But before doing that we need to know how does DigiKam work by default.

• DigiKam stores all its application settings like the GUI settings and database’s information in a file called digikamrc usually lives in ~/.config/ if it was installed via your distro package manager, or if it was being compiled from the source. But if it was being installed via Flatpak, it will live in ~/.var/app/org.kde.digikam/config/.
• DigiKam stores the media’s metadata, media’d thumbnails, image’s finger-prints, media’s information ..etc, in a MySQL (or MariaDB) or SQLite database (default) which we’ll cover it in this article.

Which means, we can either use:

• One global digikamrc for all photo libraries.
• Letting each photo library have its own digikamrc.

If we think about it, the second option seems to be better, simply because some settings make sense in some libraries, while they don’t in others. And since DigiKam stores the media’s data in a database, we want to give each library we’re about to create its own digikamrc and its own database files to store all the media’s data it needs about our collections.

Requirements:

Step 1:

Make a repository directory to store all libraries in. (in this tutorial, we will assume it’s: ~/Pictures/DigiKams/):

mkdir ~/Pictures/DigiKams

Step 2 (optional):

Now, open up the DigiKam and go to Settings -> Configure digiKam. (Or press: Ctrl+Shift+,). And configure it the way you like. Because we’re going to make your configuration you’re about to make the default configuration for each new library you’re going to create. (Of course you can re-configure them later once you open that library).

Step 3:

Now copy that settings file to our repository directory, and rename it to digikamrc.template.

If you have installed DigiKam, via your package manager, type:

cp -v ~/.config/digikamrc ~/Pictures/DigiKams/digikamrc.template

If you have installed DigiKam, via Flatpak, type:

cp -v ~/.var/app/org.kde.digikam/config/digikamrc ~/Pictures/DigiKams/digikamrc.template

If you’re using DigiKam on MacOS, type the following, then ignore Step 4:

cp -v ~/Library/Preferences/digikamrc ~/Pictures/DigiKams/digikamrc.template

If the digikamrc wasn’t in one of the previous locations, then try to find it by typing:

find ~ -type f -name digikamrc

Step 4:

Remove all values from the database variables in our digikamrc.template. (Remember, the assumed repository path is: ~/Pictures/DigiKams/, see: Step 1):

sed -i "s,Database Name=.*,Database Name=,g" "${HOME}/Pictures/DigiKams/digikamrc.template"
sed -i "s,Database Name Face=.*,Database Name Face=,g" "${HOME}/Pictures/DigiKams/digikamrc.template"
sed -i "s,Database Name Similarity=.*,Database Name Similarity=,g" "${HOME}/Pictures/DigiKams/digikamrc.template"
sed -i "s,Database Name Thumbnails=.*,Database Name Thumbnails=,g" "${HOME}/Pictures/DigiKams/digikamrc.template"

Step 5:

Clone our DigiKam multiple libraries repository:

git clone https://gitlab.com/unix.cafe/digikam-multiple-libraries /tmp/digikamctl

Now, let’s open the /tmp/digikamctl/digikamctl script in your favorite text editor and configure it.

First, we need to modify the value of the variable REPO, to match our repository location. (See: Step 1)

REPO="${HOME}/Pictures/DigiKams"

Second, we need to use the correct edition of our DigiKam, if it was installed via the package manager it is 1, if Flatpak was used to install our DigiKam, then it is 2, and if you’re using DigiKam on MacOS 3.

EDITION=1

That’s it. Now, let’s make sure digikamctl is executable and moved to the right location:

sudo mv /tmp/digikamctl/digikamctl /usr/local/bin/
sudo chown 0:0 /usr/local/bin/digikamctl
sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/digikamctl

Usage:

List your available libraries:

digikamctl ls

Create a new library (e.g: Work):

digikamctl new Work

Activate library (e.g: Work):

digikamctl use Work

Activate and open library (e.g: Personal):

digikamctl open Personal

Remove library (e.g: Work):

digikamctl rm Work

Show help:

digikamctl help

Enjoy your enhanced DigiKam 😉