# Cache and Data Maintenance

Thumbnails and other cached data can be maintained from the dialog accessible by selecting Edit ▸ Cache maintenance .

## Geeqie thumbnail and sim. cache

The utilities listed here operate on the Geeqie caching mechanism. This also includes the data cached for the search and find duplicates utilities.

Clean up

  Removes thumbnails, sim. files, and data for which the source image is no longer present, or has been modified since the thumbnail was generated.

Clear cache

  Removes all thumbnails, sim. files, and data stored in the designated folder.

## Shared thumbnail cache

The utilities listed here operate on the shared thumbnail mechanism.

Clean up

  Removes thumbnails for which the source image is no longer present, or has been modified since the thumbnail was generated.

Clear cache

  Removes all thumbnails stored in the designated folder.

## Create thumbnails

This utility will render thumbnails using the current thumbnail caching mechanism, as determined in Preferences .

Render

  Pre-render thumbnails for a specific folder, the utility has the following options:

Include subfolders

  Enable to include all images contained in the subfolders of folder.

Store thumbnails local to source images

  The generated thumbnails will be stored local to the source images, if you have the permissions to write to the folder containing the images.

## Create file similarity cache

Some file operations, such as search and find duplicates , are speeded up if similarity data files for the images have been created. This utility will create sim. files recursively under the specified folder.

The sim. files contain some or all of the following fields:

Dimensions

  width x height

Date

  Exif date in time_t format

checksum

  MD5sum 32 character ascii text digest

SimilarityGrid

  [32 x 32] = 3072 bytes of data (1024 pixels in RGB format, 1 pixel is 24bits)

## Metadata

This utility operates on the data store for Metadata located in the folder:

    $HOME/.local/share/Geeqie/metadata

Clean up

  Removes keywords and comments for which the source image is no longer present.

## Background Cache Maintenance

This facility will run the command line program described below as a stand-alone background job.

## Command line program

Geeqie can be run as a command line program: GQ_CACHE_MAINTENANCE=y[es] geeqie --cache-maintenance=<path to images>. It will recursively remove orphaned thumbnails and .sim files, and create thumbnails and similarity data for all images found.

It may also be called from cron or anacron thus enabling automatic updating of the cached data for all your images.