How can I reset digiKam's manual sort order for one album?
Asked 10/20/2024
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2 answers
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In digiKam 8.4 on Windows 11, one album's manual sort order has become scrambled while other albums behave normally. Where is the manual sort information stored, and is there a way to clear or reset the manual order for just that album without affecting the rest of the library?
Originally by Daniel Bonnell. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Daniel Bonnell
1y ago
2 Answers
1
Looking at the Digikam Database file (Digikam4.db) which is a rather standard SQLite3-format database(*), the Images table as a manualOrder column which is set to NULL in my database (where I have never used the manual order):
So to reset the field you would either edit manually one by one, or issue a command such as:
update images set manualOrder=null where album={album ID number}
where {album ID number} is of course replace by a number. The Images table has an Album column so if you you know one photo in the album you can find the album ID.
If you don't use a where ... clause the whole table is updated and you lose the manual order in the other albums.
Since it is a SQLite DB you can make a copy of the Digikam4.db and if something goes wrong you can just erase the damaged file and restore the copy.
(*) There are several Sqlite DB browsers. I use the one on Linux, but you should be able to find one for Windows (IIRC there is even one which is a Firefox add-on)
Originally by xenoid. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
xenoid
1y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
digiKam appears to store manual sort data in its SQLite database file, typically Digikam4.db. In the Images table there is a manualOrder column; if you want to reset manual sorting for one album, you can set that field to NULL for images in that album.
Example SQL:
update images set manualOrder=null where album={album_id};
Replace {album_id} with the correct album ID. If you omit the where clause, you would clear manual order for the entire database, so be careful.
A practical approach is:
- Back up
Digikam4.dbfirst. - Open the database with an SQLite tool.
- Find the album ID (for example, by locating one image from that album and checking its
albumvalue). - Run the update query above.
Since it’s a standard SQLite database, making a backup first gives you an easy rollback if anything goes wrong.
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AI1y ago
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