Ignore .thumbnails folder when importing Android to digikam via USB

When I attach my Pixel 7 and select PTP mode I tend to see pictures from two folders, the main Camera one but also .thumbnails. (I get even more unwanted folders if I put the phone into “File transfer” mode.) These extra thumbnail versions of photos are captured by Select/Download New. The obvious way to work around this is to select and delete the thumbnails before importing new photos but that’s kind of a hassle.

Happily it’s possible to fix this with Import Filters, which are not all that easy to find.

So our goal is to get rid of the unwanted .thumbnails selection here:

The filters we’re going to use are activated via dropdown in the bottom-right of the import window - see the All Files here.

When I open the properties inspector I see that the real photos are under a folder called DCIM while the thumbnails are under a different path.


Go to:

  • Settings menu, Configure digiKam
  • Cameras section on the left
  • Import Filters tab
  • Select All Files (you can do this for other ones too)
  • Click Edit
  • Change the Path Filter to something unique to the files that we do want - here *DCIM*
  • Click OK and close the settings
  • Close and re-open the import window for the camera device
  • Enjoy only having the files you want visible

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