[digiKam-users] Moving/organizing multiple Albums simultaneously

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[digiKam-users] Moving/organizing multiple Albums simultaneously

bgillson
Apologies for asking what may be a very common question/feature request. I've tried to research, but haven't found a recent (6.0+) answer.

Bottom line up front: What is the safest/fastest/least disruptive way to move multiple albums at once? Is there an anticipated timeline for this functionality to be added to Digikam (or has it been and I can't find it)?

Scenario: I have about 1,000 folders (albums) that I need to reorganize into a more sensible hierarchy on disk. Unfortunately, using tags and tag view or other "virtual album" techniques is not a viable option. In many cases, I need to move dozens of folders into a sub-folder at once, and I believe Digikam's current album tree functionality allows only one folder to be selected and moved at a time. I am running Windows 10 64-bit.

As I understand it, using the file system to move folders will require fingerprints and thumbnails to be regenerated; I can do this, but I have about 100,000 photos on a NAS, so would prefer to avoid it if possible. Some photos have tags, ratings, and photo revisions, others do not.

I've found multiple feature requests for multiple album moves and overall file management improvements, such as:

From 2011: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=269340: Possibility to select more than one folder from tree-view
From 2013: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=322323: Provide a more file-manager like interface

Comment #10 on Bug 269340 indicates it was "confirmed by popular vote" on 2019-05-11. 

So, questions before I undertake this process:

  1. What does "confirmed popular" mean from a development priority standpoint? Will bug 269340 be addressed soon enough (e.g., 6.4) that I should delay my reorganization process until it drops?
  2. Assuming not, what will be lost if I use my OS's file management to reorganize folders? What is the best way to rescan/rebuild the database?
  3. Is a hybrid approach better, in which I move folders with tagged/rated photos inside of Digikam and move folders with only raw pictures through the file system? Any concerns/dangers with this approach?

Thanks in advance for the assistance.