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0001 .. meta:: 0002 :description: How to quickly start digiKam photo management program 0003 :keywords: digiKam, documentation, user manual, photo management, open source, free, learn, easy, database, intro 0004 0005 .. metadata-placeholder 0006 0007 :authors: - digiKam Team 0008 0009 :license: see Credits and License page for details (https://docs.digikam.org/en/credits_license.html) 0010 0011 .. _database_intro: 0012 0013 Database 0014 ======== 0015 0016 Overview 0017 -------- 0018 0019 Everyone knows about a database; it is used to store data. As all other photographs management programs, digiKam too uses the database for some obvious reasons like avoiding data duplication, reducing data redundancy, a quick search engine, and greater data integrity. Moreover, the cost of data entry, storage and retrieval are drastically reduced. Additionally, any user can access the data using query language. 0020 0021 Talking in particular about digiKam, the Albums, Album Roots, Tags, Thumbnails, Face Recognition Data, Image Metadata, File Paths, Settings etc. are all stored in different database files. 0022 0023 The digiKam actually manages more than one database. For convenience, it is broadly categorized in three: 0024 0025 - Core database for all collection properties, i.e. it hosts all albums, images and searches data. 0026 0027 - Thumbnails database for compressed thumbnails i.e. to host image thumbs using wavelets compression images (**PGF** format). 0028 0029 - Similarity database to store image finger-prints for fuzzy search engine. 0030 0031 - Face database for storing face recognition metadata i.e. to host face histograms for faces recognition. 0032 0033 .. figure:: images/database_remote_mysql_config.webp 0034 :alt: 0035 :align: center 0036 0037 Example of digiKam Remote MySQL Configuration Hosted on a NAS From The Local Network 0038 0039 The whole details of database settings are mostly given in the :ref:`Database Setup section <database_settings>`. 0040 0041 Migrating From Other Software 0042 ----------------------------- 0043 0044 To populate the digiKam database from file properties managed by another software, it's recommend to write all metadata in XMP sidecar files for the best interoperability. digiKam cannot parse the proprietary and closed source database. XMP sidecar is standardized and well documented. 0045 0046 In digiKam, check well the :ref:`Metadata Setup section <metadata_settings>` to use XMP sidecar. The Advanced panel offers a profiles management to handle special cases while importing and exporting metadata with 3rd-party software. 0047 0048 Typically, from a fresh installation of digiKam, you can create a new root collection based on your path where images managed by your extra software. The contents will be parsed and the database will be populated with the information found in the XMP sidecar. 0049 0050 When scan of items is done (this can take a while), you must to see all tags, labels, comments in digiKam items properties. 0051 0052 .. note: 0053 0054 It's recommend to make test first, on small collection, and to process step by step by adjusting the settings if necessary.