Indexing Photos

Smriti’s scanner walks your library folder, extracts metadata from each photo, and writes it to a SQLite database alongside the photos. This page covers what scanning does, what it skips, and how to refresh the index.

What a scan does

For every supported file under the library root:

1. Checks if Smriti has already indexed it. Files identified by path + size + modification time are skipped on subsequent scans.
2. Reads EXIF. Capture date, GPS coordinates, camera make/model, ISO, aperture, shutter, focal length, orientation.
3. Hashes the file (SHA-256) for byte-level duplicate detection.
4. Resolves a place name if GPS is present, using the local GeoNames database.
5. Generates thumbnails (three sizes) lazily, the first time each photo is viewed.
6. Queues face detection if the asset pack is installed.

Smriti never copies, moves, or modifies your originals.

What’s indexed

Image formats: JPEG, PNG, WebP, HEIC / HEIF (if libheif is compiled in), TIFF, BMP, GIF (first frame), plus the common camera RAW formats with embedded JPEG previews: NEF, CR2, ARW, DNG, ORF, RW2, PEF, SRW, RAF.

Skipped:

• Files smaller than 10 KB (guards against icons and email thumbnails).
• Files without a recognised extension.
• Hidden folders (those starting with .) — unless Scan hidden folders is enabled in Settings.
• .photovault/ itself, always.

Reindex actions

Smriti doesn’t run scans on a schedule. You re-trigger them from Settings → Maintenance:

• Rescan Library — walks the entire library, picks up new files, files that changed, files that moved, and files that were deleted. Existing rows for unchanged files are left alone.
• Check for Changes — like rescan but doesn’t re-process unchanged files. Faster when you only added or removed a few photos.
• Refresh Capture Dates — re-reads capture dates for photos and videos. Smriti prefers embedded metadata, then strict filename dates, and uses file modified time only as a marked fallback.
• Regenerate Thumbnails — discards all thumbnails and lazy-rebuilds on next view.

How long it takes

• First scan of a 10,000-photo library on a modern laptop: 5–15 minutes for metadata, then 30 minutes – 3 hours for face detection on CPU (the slow step). A free Kaggle/Colab GPU bridge can cut the face pass to ~5 minutes — see the face GPU bridge doc.
• Incremental rescan when a few hundred new photos appeared: seconds to minutes.
• Thumbnails are lazy — generated when a view scrolls a photo into the viewport, not upfront. Scrolling the Timeline for the first time is when most thumbnail work happens.

The .photovault/ folder

This hidden directory at the library root contains everything Smriti needs:

<library>/
├── photo1.jpg
├── photo2.jpg
├── trip-2018/
│   └── ...
└── .photovault/
    ├── photovault.db        # SQLite — all metadata
    └── thumbnails/          # three-tier thumbnail cache

Keep this folder when you copy or back up the library. Delete it and Smriti will re-index from scratch on next open.

See also

• Settings → Indexing — the scan options
• People and Faces — the face-detection pass
• Cleanup — finding and removing duplicates