lighttable

Control functionality in the lighttable view and modules.

🔗general

hide built-in presets for utility modules: If enabled, only user-defined presets will be shown in presets menu for utility modules – built-in presets will be hidden (default off).
use single-click in the collections module: Enable “single click” mode in the collections module, which allows ranges to be selected (default off).
expand a single utility module at a time: Controls how utility modules are expanded. If this option is enabled, expanding a module by clicking collapses any other currently expanded panel. If you want to expand a panel without collapsing the others you can do so with Shift+click. Disabling this option inverts the meaning of click and Shift+click (default off).
scroll utility modules to the top when expanded: With this option enabled the side panels will scroll a utility module to the top of the panel when it is expanded. (default off)
rating an image one star twice will not zero out the rating: Normally clicking a one star rating twice will set a zero star rating to that image. Check this option to disable this functionality (default off).
show scrollbars for center view: Choose whether to show scrollbars in the center view of the lighttable (default on).
show image time with milliseconds: Choose whether to include milliseconds when displaying time values (default off). If set, milliseconds are shown in the image information module and can also be used in the geotagging module.

🔗thumbnails

use raw file instead of embedded JPEG from size: When generating thumbnails for images that have not yet been processed in the darkroom, if the thumbnail size is greater than this value, generate it by processing the raw image data. If the thumbnail is below this size, use the JPEG preview image embedded in the raw file. Once an image has been processed in the darkroom, thumbnails will always be generated from raw data (you can revert back to the JPEG preview by discarding history). To render thumbnails with the best quality choose “always”.
high quality processing from size: If the thumbnail size is greater than this value and is being generated from raw data, it will be processed using the full quality rendering path, which is better but slower (default 720p). To render thumbnails with the best quality, choose “always”.
enable disk backend for thumbnail cache: If activated, darktable stores all thumbnails on disk as a secondary cache, and thereby keeps thumbnails accessible if they are dropped from the primary cache. This needs more disk space but speeds up the lighttable view as it avoids the reprocessing of thumbnails (default on).
enable disk backend for full preview cache: If enabled, darktable writes full preview images to disk (.cache/darktable/) when evicted from the memory cache. Note that this can take a lot of storage (several gigabytes for 20k images) and darktable will never delete cached images. It’s safe to delete these manually if you want. Enabling this option will greatly improve lighttable performance when zooming an image in full preview mode (default off).
generate thumbnails in background: Choose whether to automatically generate thumbnails in the background when the user is in the lighttable view and is inactive (no keyboard/mouse activity). Thumbnails will be generated up to the selected size (default never).; Note: You can set the period of inactivity required before thumbnail generation will start by altering the backthumbs_inactivity setting in $HOME/.config/darktable/darktablerc (default 5 seconds).
reset cached thumbnails: Force thumbnails to be regenerated by resetting the database. This may be needed if some thumbnails have been manually removed or have become corrupted (default off).
delimiters for size categories: Size categories are used to allow different thumbnail overlays to be shown depending on the thumbnail size. A pipe delimited set of values defines at what image sizes the category changes. The default value of “120|400” means that there will be 3 categories of thumbnail: 0-120px, 120-400px and >400px.
pattern for the thumbnail extended overlay text: If you have chosen to show extended overlay text over thumbnail images, this setting allows you to define what information is displayed. This pattern can use any of the variables defined in the variables section. You can also include formatting (bold, italic, colors etc).
pattern for the thumbnail tooltip (empty to disable): Defines what information is displayed in the tooltip when the mouse hovers over image thumbnails. This pattern can also use the same variables and formatting as the extended overlay text.