digiKam 9.1.0 is released

Dear digiKam fans and users,

After three months of active development, bug triage, and feature integration, the digiKam team is proud to announce the stable release of digiKam 9.1.0. This version builds on the foundation of 9.0.0, introducing new features, performance improvements, and a significant number of bug fixes to enhance stability, usability, and workflow efficiency. This release focuses on database migration, preview enhancements, advanced search, and usability improvements across the board.

• New Features and Major Changes
  • General Updates and Porting
  • Bundles Component Versions
  • User Interface and Usability
  • Preview and Media Support
  • Database and Metadata
  • Advanced Search
  • Performance and Stability
• Notable Bug Fixes
  • Database and Migration
  • Survey Tool and Workflow
  • Face Recognition and AI Tools
  • Preview and Media
  • Geolocation and Maps
  • Metadata
  • File Management
  • Packaging
  • Image Editor
• Internationalization
• Future Plans
• Final Words

New Features and Major Changes

General Updates and Porting

digiKam 9.1.0 continues the transition to modern frameworks, with updates to Qt 6.11.0 and KDE Frameworks 6.26.0 for the AppImage, Windows, and macOS bundles. The Windows Qt6 installer now ensure better compatibility with Windows 11. The LibRaw engine has been updated to 20260523, bringing support for additional camera models and performance improvements.

The QtAVPlayer video module has also been updated to 20260405 for Qt5 users, improving video playback stability and performance.

Bundles Component Versions

This release includes updates to several key components:

User Interface and Usability

Advanced Search

A “Clear All Groups” button has been added to the SearchView interface, making it easier to reset search filters and start fresh.

Preview and Media Support

Pixel Motion Photos

digiKam 9.1.0 now supports Pixel motion photos, which are short videos embedded in pictures taken on Google Pixel phones. This allows users to preview and manage these hybrid media files seamlessly within the application.

Audio Output Selection

Better support for audio output selection in the video media player, ensuring a smoother playback experience.

Database and Metadata

Time Zone Support

The database schema has been updated to support time zones for registered item timestamps, ensuring accurate and consistent time management across different regions.

MariaDB Migration

Significant improvements have been made to MariaDB migration, ensuring a smoother transition for users upgrading from older versions.

Notable Bug Fixes

Database and Migration

• 517251: MariaDB Migration.
• 517354: Images seem to be gone when upgrading from 8.8.0 with MariaDB on NAS (but are still in DB).
• 519389: MariaDB/MySQL: missing index on Images.status causes full table scan on tag count, calendar, and People panel queries.
• 519390: DB: ImageTagProperties.property should be VARCHAR, not TEXT.
• 519443: UpdateSchemaFromV16ToV17 not implemented for QMYSQL / MariaDB.
• 519915: Face Recognition engine fails to process Tag-only selections and ignores Tag constraints when Albums are selected.
• 514970: Create index on ImageTagProperties.property.
• 518587: Migration from a PC to another one.

Survey Tool and Workflow

• 517308: In the new “Survey” tool, the left and right overlay navigation arrows are not working.
• 517538: Shortcuts not working in Survey module.
• 517560: Short key for flags do not work in new survey screen.
• 520697: Grouped Image in Survey is not deleted.
• 517441: Grouping by Filename is behaving differently on macOS than on Linux Mint.
• 517420: Changing rating filter does not result in immediate view update.

Face Recognition and AI Tools

• 517449: Unable to create a face region.
• 517942: Qt assertion failure due to integer overflow in facepipeline.
• 518662: Face detection fails on low-resolution (300x300px) images.
• 517393: Faces menu when viewing an image preview is showing image_recognize_faces instead of the label.
• 519125: Improve face tag query performance: CREATE INDEX idx_itp_tagid_property ON ImageTagProperties(tagid, property(50)).
• 516875: OpenCL not detected on AMD RADEON RX 470 card.
• 520203: Setting a people (e.g., “Mark”) through tag manager => htags = “People”, “People|Mark” instead of just “People|Mark”.

Preview and Media

• 520290: digiKam hangs after choosing WebDAVs network share (KDE).
• 517303: Modification date is not being edited.
• 517862: Poor rendering of JXL thumbnails in general thumbnails view.
• 518046: AssignCaption tool: caption/title disappear after restart.
• 518245: Crash: std::system_error EINVAL in QReadWriteLock::lockForRead() during scanPAlbums on Linux kernel 6.17.
• 517588: Cut and paste crash, jas_init_library: Assertion !jas_global.initialized failed.
• 518318: Crash in QToolBar::widgetForAction during cleanupActions() on Fedora 43.
• 518518: After opening digiKam and connecting Bluetooth headphones, you need to restart the application for it to recognize the headphones.
• 518839: Improve performance of album’s cache.
• 510124: Black screen during video playback.
• 518981: “Write to XMP sidecar only” not honored for rotation data.
• 520577: Navigating in thumbnails/preview uses 100% of main thread for 10-15 seconds on each selection change.
• 520510: Date Format is inconsistent with settings.
• 520901: Slideshow freezes and stops responding when encountering JPEG with 0xDEADBEEF marker in EXIF UserComment field.

Geolocation and Maps

• 520195: Error message during reverse geocoding.
• 517484: Network error message while using reverse geocoding with OpenStreetMap.
• 517790: GPS coordinate overwritten when writing tags to XMP sidecar.
• 518091: Error 429 from OpenStreetMap: too many requests.
• 518334: Use QuickTime CreationDate if Present Rather Than CreateDate in MOV files.
• 520195: Error message during reverse geocoding.
• 520333: GPS coordinates for video file is not updated in ImagePositions table.
• 519650: The program closes suddenly when opening geotag dialog.
• 517299: Opening Geolocation Editor crashes digiKam.
• 517668: Show placeholders for other files in the album.

Metadata

• 517558: Finalizing Tags removes EXIF Copyright and Artist entries.
• 517624: Filtering on rating (stars 0-5) not working correctly.
• 517671: Rating filter does not work.
• 517772: Bug after update libexiv2-27.
• 518687: Time Adjust “EXIF: original” uses old XMP CreateDate/DateCreated instead of Xmp.exif.DateTimeOriginal.
• 518263: Filter on star rating does not work.
• 518728: The ratings/star filters have no effect.
• 518995: ExifTool not found on first use.
• 517885: Can’t assign number key without modifier as tag shortcut.

File Management

• 517585: Import from SD-card without being asked for an album.
• 514121: Preserve item selection when resorting columns in Table View (Album tab).
• 517864: Unsynchronized panning control areas between left and right panes.
• 517863: Batch queue-subtract time errors.
• 518993: New album dialog is blocked and hidden when selected as part of move items workflow.
• 519273: New Album dialog has its initial focus on the ‘Help’ button rather than on Title of New Album.
• 519714: Flickr Export reports “Unable to Write”.
• 519854: Album (sorted by folder)->Refresh does not include sub-folders in specified album.
• 514723: File rename seems to be unable to detect existing files with name it wishes to assign, and that generates a conflict.
• 506349: “Move To Album” default album.

Packaging

• 517328: Error when starting digiKam 9.0.0 - lensfun.dll.
• 511588: Portable archive for 8.8.0 (digiKam-8.8.0-Qt6-Win64.tar.xz) is missing as a download option.
• 517798: digiKam crashes immediately even after reinstall.
• 518688: macOS: digiKam cannot switch application language to Simplified Chinese (zh_CN).
• 518771: Build system and documentation issues on ARM64 Linux.
• 519370: OS cursor is still visible when preview magnifier tool is active, obscuring the magnified content.
• 517766: Crash on App startup.
• 517757: Clicking on a “Help” button in a dialog causes digiKam to silently disappear.
• 518072: Declutter sidebars.
• 518287: Small fault in the “Selected Item Properties” caption.

Image Editor

• 448135: No plugins could be loaded in Windows 10.
• 519200: Darktable raw import fails.
• 518820: Image Editor Save Settings are incorrect.

Internationalization

digiKam 9.1.0 supports 61 languages for the application interface, and the online documentation now supports 17 languages. Users can change the language via the Settings/Configure Languages dialog.

Future Plans

The next maintenance release is planned for late 2026, focusing on further OpenCV 5 migration, performance improvements, and the introduction of new AI-powered tools for image enhancement, management, and workflow automation. We also plan to continue improving database performance and user experience based on community feedback. Due to the End Of Life of the Qt5 frameworks, Windows and Linux AppImage bundles will only be published officially with the Qt6 version. Only the macOS Intel will stay published with Qt5 for backward compatibility with older Apple operating systems.

Final Words

We extend our heartfelt thanks to all users for their support, feedback, and donations. Special thanks to all contributors, testers, and translators who made this release possible.

digiKam 9.1.0 is available for download from this repository as:

• Source code tarball
• Linux 64-bit AppImage bundles (compatible with systems based on glibc >= 2.31)
• Windows 10 (or later) 64-bit installers or bundle archives
• macOS Silicon and Intel packages

Stay tuned for more updates, and enjoy seamless photo management with digiKam 9.1.0!

The digiKam Team