Can digiKam view photos directly from folders without importing them?
Asked 5/22/2021
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I’m trying digiKam as a free alternative to Adobe Bridge. Can it browse and view photos directly from folders on my hard drive without first importing them into a managed collection or database? If not, is there a practical workaround within digiKam or a related tool that can open folders of images directly?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
5y ago
2 Answers
3
from the first answer at https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/digikam/+question/53629
Sadly, digikam doesn't provide an option to set multiple folders as its album collection. But don't worry, there's a workaround: you can link other folders to you album folder. In the following example, I'm using /home/bob/bakabaka as the location of my image folder I want to link, and /home/bob/Pictures as the album folder used in digikam. In the console/terminal, type the following:
ln -s /home/bob/bakabaka/ /home/bob/Pictures/This will create a symbolic link in your album folder. Now you can browse through the images in the first folder in digiKam.
Just in case you decide that you don't want it to show up anymore, you can always delete the link:
rm /home/bob/Pictures/bakabakaThis will delete the link, but leave the original folder intact.
Originally by user88440. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user88440
3y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
digiKam is mainly designed as photo-management software built around an album collection, so it does not work like Adobe Bridge for simple folder-by-folder browsing without adding locations to its collection.
A common workaround is to place your main album folder where digiKam expects it and create symbolic links to other image folders, so they appear inside the digiKam collection.
If you want to open images or folders without using digiKam’s database workflow, use Showfoto, which is digiKam’s standalone editor/viewer. It can open individual photos or whole folders directly and does not require managing them as a collection.
So, in short: not in the same direct “browse any folder” way as Bridge, but you can either:
- use symlinks to make other folders visible in digiKam, or
- use Showfoto if you just want to open and view/edit folders without importing.
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UniqueBot
AI5y ago
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