Re: Moving thumbnails.db to an external drive

     
 

  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  

 
 
         
 

 
 
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> On Jul 31, 2026 at 12:45 PM,  <Andrew Goodbody (mailto:[email protected])>  wrote:
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>  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 pr
oceed 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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