Rescue images from darktable cache

Software darktable
1

Hey everyone,
I had a bit of an embarrassing situation and lost some raw files from my SD card that I had already imported into darktable (but not copies over to my computer).
The 720p thumbnails that darktable creates on import would be a welcome rescue. Therefore I looked in ~/.var/app/org.darktable.Darktable/cache/darktable/mipmaps-… (it’s installed from flatpak) but they don’t seem to be there anymore. Did they get deleted when I reimported my SD card and the files weren’t there anymore (skulls in lighttable)?
Any chances I can still find them anywhere?

Thanks,
Oskar

2

If you still have the SD card, try photorec to recover the files.

3

Thanks for your reply.
I’m working on that but the card has been formatted and pictures have been taken afterwards, so chances are the old pictures are unrecoverable.
Any ideas concerning the darktable cache?

4

If the thumbnail you wanted is a skull, it likely isn’t there and has been removed.

5

It has been there on first import but I guess it was deleted when I reimported the folder and noticed the card has been formatted?

6

I’d gather so. But you shouldn’t be importing from the SD card. Move your files off the SD card then import into darktable.

7

I knew that before and will stick to it from now on :roll_eyes:

8

look up “rapid photo downloader”

9

As @darix mentioned: Rapid Photo Downloader is a really great tool to handle those issues, I heavily depend on it for my workflow.

As for the rest, try to delay the removal of the photos from the cards as late as possible, I do that more and more often, and sometimes I have the same photo in 4 different locations (SD cards, travel backup disk, desktop, desktop backups). That recently literally saved my ass from loosing an entire day of travel photos: João Pedro Almeida

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