How can I avoid that darktable spams a whole folder with its XMP files for every single image? Even images that where never opened by dt.
Just had that bug again last night, not sure what version, could be either rc2 or a 2.*, the XMP doesn’t tell.
I don’t have this behavior in 2.6.3. So its either and RC bug or you’re accidently importing folders recursively.
You can turn off writing xmp files entirely in the preferences.
1 Like
That’s:
Preferences > Core Options > XMP > Write sidecar file for each image > untick
Great!
1 Like
When I started using darktable almost a decade ago I thought the same and I immediately unticked this option. Since then, I learned how useful the sidecars are. Some examples how I benefit from them:
- I have an additional backup of my edits that will automatically end up in the same backup the raw files are.
- I can use git to have the xmp files under revision control and so I can roll back any messed up edit.
- They are useful for interaction with other tools. In my case, these are command line tools, but afaik e.g. digikam will understand them as well.
- Xmp files can be easily shared with other people together with the raw files.
- Their presence show you that the images are already known by darktable without starting darktable, e.g in a file manager.
- There may be more …
So, these days, I only sleep well if I store the xmps with the raw files.
2 Likes
Yes, those XMP files are useful, like pp3 files are for RawTherapee. The issue is that once you import a folder EVERY SINGLE FILE will get a default XMP file no matter you edit it or not. And that will cause issues if you want to use a file manager to work on that directory. You have so many additional and useless files to deal with.
Really, whats the point in placing a file just with some random default settings?
Having an option “save XMP file when you edit a file” would be awesome!
1 Like
Of course more options are usually better, specially if it helps you in any way. But I can’t really see the point, I take quite a lot of picture and many I eventually delete. When I delete i.e. with irfanview I don’t see the XMP and later have plenty of orphan XMP files.
Or sometimes I pop in the SD card for a very quick edit and have to remove 100 XMP files later.
Having the option to switch it off is totally fine for me.
@st.raw : spam ? just stop using darktable then or read the manual.
You can set up Irfanview to delete sidecar files, too. Go to ‘Options’ → ‘properties’ → ‘File Handling’ → ‘For experts: also delete sidecar files…’
Add XMP to the list of extensions.
I copy all new RAW files from a SD card to my computer and edit them from there. Every session gets a new folder (like ‘20190623_vacation_England’ or ‘20190824_Birthday_sister’).
This also is a first backup and I got all new RAWs on SD card and a computer. Moreover I don’t get hundreds of files on one folder. SD cards can get damaged easily.
Going off at a tangent here…
Chris wrote:
“They are useful for interaction with other tools. In my case, these are command line tools, but afaik e.g. digikam will understand them as well.”
Chris, do you know what digikam extracts from them? I didn’t find digikam useful because it showed the original unedited form of the files, which made it hard to recognise those converted to B&W in particular. Maybe there was a parameter I needed to set?
Otherwise, I love my XMP’s 
No, unfortunately not, as I do not use digikam. But I read here on pixls.us either about this interaction or about problems with it 
.
But I would guess it’s metadata and not edits that you can carry over.
As darktable stores additional metadata such as star ratings and tags plus some internal information in these files, I think such an option is not necessary. The only possibility I see is that xmps are only generated if anything about the file status changes. However, even during import some metadata is set, so that this would not help at all.
Yep, that seems reasonable, but I thought I should check.
In fact I’m coming to realise that the collections module in dt can probably provide all the things I ever used in LR… if only the UI was a bit clearer…
I shall persist 
Le lun. 23 déc. 2019 à 12:42, chris via discuss.pixls.us noreply@discuss.pixls.us a écrit :
I never used lightroom. What I really miss is static named collections that save the order of the pictures. Other than that, I think you are correct 
.
“Additional metadata” - So you are saying the whole database darktable uses is worthless because those XMP files are still needed? I always thought all the info is in the database and the XMPs are just there so they can easily be shared together with the RAW files and as a (sort of) backup so you can start with a fresh database and simply let it import metadata and edits from those xmp files.
Personally I do not use darktable as my main image management and editor spftware. But I use it regularly to check out recent features and therefor go with darktable-git. I also have some important edits with darktable I do not want to lose, especially with local edits from the time before I switched to RawTherapee newlocallab branch. Because of that I do not want lose the edits in the sqlite database through a bad git checkout and therefor need to keep the xmp files (and need xmp files for future imports of new images). I do not want to turn the option off.
So if that XMP spam situation works for your workflow - that’s fine. But there are people out there with a different usage who get annoyed by it.
So first thing I did in the 3.0.0 release version was to disable that feature
Preferences > Core Options > XMP > Write sidecar file for each image > untick
And 3.0.0 is here:
Thanks to the developers!
But that option entirely prevents writing of xmp files which is what I do NOT want - I want those XMP files for images that I edited but not for images that got imported together with the other images in that directory! Or has that behaviour been changed in DT-3.0.0?
Just tested it and imported one image from a folder with multiple images, only the imported image has got a XMP file
I know that works. But I want to import a folder. And only if I edit a RAW file a XMP file should be written.
I think that some metadata is needed for lighttable view after import. And sooner or later every photo gets some data (ratings, tags etc.). Therefore I see no problem in writing XMP directly after import.
No, therefore you can switch xmps off entirely. What you cannot do is storing only the edits and not the metadata in the xmps. But my point is that I first wanted to avoid xmps at all, but later discovered how useful they are and that I can live with the “spam” given the benefits they provide.
1 Like