Hey there,
Apologies in advance if this has been asked a million times already, but I was wondering how you go about updating to the latest version of DT if you’re on MacOS?
I also assume that, before you update anything, you should take a backup first. How would you do this on Mac?
TIA
Hi @beecham,
To backup your data, you can just make a copy of the ~/.config/darktable directory, assuming you are using the default command line options. This is where darktable stores all user preferences and the library.
That said, while it is always a good idea to err on the side of safety, it should not be necessary.
New darktable releases are backwards compatible will update your database as necessary, and whenever you start a new version for the first time darktable will back up the most important stuff for you (for example, in my ~/.config/darktable I see files such as library.db-pre-5.2.1, which darktable created automatically when I ran 5.2.1 for the first time).
So, TL;DR:
~/.config/darktable.Thanks Daniele,
That’s helpful, and I’ve done just that. I’ve downloaded and installed the latest version 5.4.1, and got the error message that Apple couldn’t confirm it’s not malware.
There’s a terminal command I’ve used and now I have the latest version working.
Thanks!
Happy to help, Michael. Enjoy all the goodies of 5.4.1 
that’s the usual macos behaviour since the package aren’t notarized.
New releases should not be assumed to be backward compatible. There are often changes to the db that will not work in an older version once used with a newer version.
I must have used the wrong term, then. I meant to say that installing a new version will not break your existing assets. How is that called? Forward compatible?
I guess so. Its something I just expect to work and I’d also expect some warning or detection if it wasn’t going to work.
if there’re database changes you’ll get a warning at startup indicating a database upgrade with an option to abort and do a backup first …