[digiKam-users] Renaming lots of photo filenames (using convmv). Best practice?

[Jens Benecke-2]

Hello,

I noticed that my library has quite a number of photos with broken
umlauts due to some UTF-8 name mangling, and that I can fix this using
the 'convmv' tool which was introduced in Linux when UTF-8 became the
standard encoding everywhere. It automatically detects filenames with
invalid encodings and renames them to the correct form.

But I am a little hesitant to rename >>100 photos using this tool.

What will Digikam do with the metadata when the photos are renamed? All
images have tags and ratings, many have descriptions and titles.
Will I leave orphaned entries in the database?
Will the image metadata be kept and applied to the renamed files?
Do I need to (or should I?) let Digikam run in the background while
renaming so it can detect the change in the file system?

I use XMP sidecars for all files which then will also be renamed. Do
these contain all metadata?

There are too many files to be renamed to do it manually within Digikam
(that would take hours) so that is not an option.

How should I proceed?

--
Regards, Jens

[hajo]

I'd

1) back up everything

2) write all metadata to xmp's

3) rename files

4) re-import into Digikam

Between 2) & 3) possibly delete the Digikam database file?

On Wed, Jul 15, 2020 at 4:50 AM Jens Benecke <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hello,

I noticed that my library has quite a number of photos with broken
umlauts due to some UTF-8 name mangling, and that I can fix this using
the 'convmv' tool which was introduced in Linux when UTF-8 became the
standard encoding everywhere. It automatically detects filenames with
invalid encodings and renames them to the correct form.

But I am a little hesitant to rename >>100 photos using this tool.

What will Digikam do with the metadata when the photos are renamed? All
images have tags and ratings, many have descriptions and titles.
Will I leave orphaned entries in the database?
Will the image metadata be kept and applied to the renamed files?
Do I need to (or should I?) let Digikam run in the background while
renaming so it can detect the change in the file system?

I use XMP sidecars for all files which then will also be renamed. Do
these contain all metadata?

There are too many files to be renamed to do it manually within Digikam
(that would take hours) so that is not an option.

How should I proceed?

--
Regards, Jens

Le 14/07/2020 à 22:50, Jens Benecke a écrit :

> But I am a little hesitant to rename >>100 photos using this tool.
>

> I use XMP sidecars for all files which then will also be renamed. Do
> these contain all metadata?
>

is it on Linux or Windows?

I have no experience on Windows with digiKam, but on Linux I'm pretty
sure digiKam use file inode ID (dunno the exact name), not name, because
you can easily test on a special folder than renaming with the OS is
immediately visible in digiKam

of course, the wmp file have to be renamed also

else, use que batch digiKam system :-)

jdd


--
http://dodin.org

[Jens Benecke-2]

Am 15.07.20 um 08:38 schrieb [hidden email]:
> Le 14/07/2020 à 22:50, Jens Benecke a écrit :
>
>> But I am a little hesitant to rename >>100 photos using this tool.
>> I use XMP sidecars for all files which then will also be renamed. Do
>> these contain all metadata?
>>
> is it on Linux or Windows?

Linux.


> I have no experience on Windows with digiKam, but on Linux I'm pretty
> sure digiKam use file inode ID (dunno the exact name), not name,
> because you can easily test on a special folder than renaming with the
> OS is immediately visible in digiKam
> of course, the wmp file have to be renamed also
> else, use que batch digiKam system :-)

BQM does not work because I need to use 'convmv' which detects broken
UTF8 characters. BQM would amount to manual renaming, which would take
hours or days.

I'll try on one folder and see if the rating etc. is transferred. Should
I keep Digikam running during the rename for it to recognize a rename
(instead of "one file removed, another one added")?


--
Regards, Jens

[Gilles Caulier-4]

Le ven. 17 juil. 2020 à 18:53, Jens Benecke
<[hidden email]> a écrit :

>
> Am 15.07.20 um 08:38 schrieb [hidden email]:
> > Le 14/07/2020 à 22:50, Jens Benecke a écrit :
> >
> >> But I am a little hesitant to rename >>100 photos using this tool.
> >> I use XMP sidecars for all files which then will also be renamed. Do
> >> these contain all metadata?
> >>
> > is it on Linux or Windows?
>
> Linux.
>
>
> > I have no experience on Windows with digiKam, but on Linux I'm pretty
> > sure digiKam use file inode ID (dunno the exact name), not name,
> > because you can easily test on a special folder than renaming with the
> > OS is immediately visible in digiKam
> > of course, the wmp file have to be renamed also
> > else, use que batch digiKam system :-)
>
> BQM does not work because I need to use 'convmv' which detects broken
> UTF8 characters. BQM would amount to manual renaming, which would take
> hours or days.

Under Windows, Unicode support for file name have been fixed
everywhere with new 7.0.0 release.

Best

Gilles Caulier

Le 17/07/2020 à 18:53, Jens Benecke a écrit :

> I'll try on one folder and see if the rating etc. is transferred. Should
> I keep Digikam running during the rename for it to recognize a rename
> (instead of "one file removed, another one added")?
>
>
no. I use "detox" to fix the naming problems (linux)

jdd

--
http://dodin.org