Moving The Whole Image Library to Another Drive

[YourFriendlyNeighborhoodMONKE]

Simple question:

If I was to move a big image library to another drive, would Allusion be able to retain tags?

If there's some special instructions how to do this, I would love to know

Thank you!

[JohnnyArtist]

Yes, I too am curious to understand how to transfer my data base with references to other computers.

[Zahawk84]

Not sure why no one answered but for anyone in future.

1. Open the Allusion App
2. Press the [...] button, then [Settings], then Import/Export
3. Now you want to 'Write tags to file metadata' (this will add applied tags to each images metadata)
4. Now you can move your images to the new location
5. Reopen Allusion, remember to add the new location with the [+] button
6. Repeat 2. except this time 'Import tags from file metadata'

Done you should have your images in a new location with the tags still in place.

Note: BMP images don't have metadata to write to, so expect no tags to import/export on them, this is a problem with .BMP files not Allusion.
Note2: Expect this to take quite awhile with big image libraries...

[JohnnyArtist]

Thank you for your reply)

[rafstahelin]

Thanks for this. Just to be clear. The tag import/export only works on the current tag view. Or do I misunderstand? Would import export tags affect the entire current folder that is selected at the top?

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[Zahawk84]

Export will write to metadata any tags currently applied to each image (for every image found in added locations section with attached tags, also applies to images with no tags attached so previously stored metadata is erased).
Import will read that metadata and add the appropreate tags to the Tags section if you don't have them whereever you moved them to, then automatically applies those tags as you left off.

If your asking which folder Import/Export edits then that would be all of them selected or not, so every image in all added locations,
so yeah this is why it can take quite awhile to do, also pretty sure it scans all images tagged or not which increases the time it takes.

[Zahawk84]

Side note, your comment would be a neat feature request "Import/Export by Tag, Location, Sub-Folder or Selected rather than Everything".
Not something I'd use but im sure someone would appreciate it.

[Zahawk84]

Not sure if this is a new feature or past me was ignorant... Importing/Exporting your entire library to another computer is alot faster than the other method I suggested.

1. Open the Allusion App, press the [...] button, then [Settings], then Import/Export
2. Press Backup database to file, then go to the specified Backup Directory and Copy that Backup.JSON file
3. Move your images to the new location
4. Repeat step 1
5. Press Restore database from file
6. Either thats it or you need to re-locate your images by pressing the hazard triangle under the Locations section.

[Antoine-lb]

I may be wrong but I think that in the JSON backup, files are reference by the full path. Therefore if you move the files it would stop working. But I'm not sure about this

[Zahawk84]

I’ve just moved mine across old laptop to new, my photos were on an external SSD but Allusion App was on the laptops. As far as I could tell, the JSON file holds the side bar tag info, the tags applied to photos info, and the past location of the photos (which needs to be re-located once moved).

[Antoine-lb]

Maybe it worked bc you didn't move them from the hard drive, so the absolute path is still the same. If you move them from your hard drive to the computer the backup will probably break

[Zahawk84]

Just tried moving the library from my SSD to my PC, worked exactly as I described above. (My PC had a different Library than my Laptop which I backed up and replaced with the Laptop one, then put back again all with no issues)
Note however that the folder and folder structure would need to stay the same to re-locate the library, once re-located you can rename/move/edit as per normal though.

[Antoine-lb]

Good to know, ignore what I said

[s0m3guy]

I would also love to know I'll do it the right way. Since I plan on installing a fresh new Windows system, I'd love to keep my current state of Allusion with all my images and the corresponding tags.

My archive consists of 99% PNG files. If I understand correctly, PNG does not support tags as in I cannot embed my tags into the files themselves. However, the location of my files will not change. One of the directories they're in right now, will be formatted, but I'll back it up and put it into the same directory after the installation.

So my question is: is it enough to back up the .json backup-file and use the "Restore database from file" function after putting all my files in their original places, installing allusion, and clicking this button for restoring and I'll have my whole images with all the tags as before?

[Zahawk84]

Yep, as long as you keep the folder structure. Eg. I have all my images in a folder with subfolders throughout, so that main folder can be placed any where on the new PC, just note that you would need to re-locate the file path by pressing that hazards triangle under the locations section.
Honestly though you dont have to trust me with your whole tag database, try a small 5 image set up on a spare laptop and export the .json then maybe set up another 10 export that then reload the first. Get comfortable before committing.

[s0m3guy]

I already have that hazard triangle right now for 3 images for some reason. But when I click it it just shows me these 3 images with a "dead emoji" where I cannot do anything really. Or you mean something else?

Also yes this also crossed my mind trying out a testing environment on my laptop. Problem is my laptop is in a really bad state right now so not sure this might work but maybe I'll try. I also just found this allusion fork here: https://github.com/RafaUC/Allusion and wondered if I can just try this with my allusion backup.

[Zahawk84]

Top left not bottom left triangle(unless i changed my layout?)(should say “Locations” which is above my tags), shouldn't show until you move the folder location though.