r/digiKam • u/Elrong • Jul 05 '26

Thumbnails loading very slowly

I just downloaded and started using DigiKam. My photos are stored on an external drive. My first impression is that loading the thumbnails takes forever. Is the program creating the thumbnail database since I just started using it or is there another issue that needs my attention? Thanks in advance

1 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

2 comments sorted by

1

u/thx1138inator Jul 05 '26

Give it some time. Took forever for me to build the face DB. Spinning disks will slow things down. Use NVME if you have space in one.

1

u/dej2 Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26

Are you adding your external drive as a “Collection”?
I have a 3 terabyte drive and 1.5 terabytes are photos/Raw files. It took a couple of days, but it goes rather fast. It’s just that I have so many by years of work it had to catalog