Bug 514457

Currently, digiKam provides a hierarchical Date tree in the left sidebar, which allows fast and intuitive browsing by year / month / day.

For EXIF metadata such as Camera Make, Camera Model, and Lens, filtering is only available via flat metadata filters or advanced searches. While powerful, this makes exploratory browsing and discovery more cumbersome when working with multiple cameras and lenses.

I would like to request a hierarchical tree view filter for EXIF metadata, comparable to the Date tree.

Proposed Behavior

A new optional sidebar view (or extension of the Filters sidebar) that allows browsing metadata as a tree, for example:

Camera
 ├── Canon
 │    ├── EOS R5
 │    │    ├── RF 24-70mm
 │    │    └── RF 85mm
 │    └── EOS 5D IV
 ├── Nikon
 │    └── Z8

or individually selectable trees such as:

Camera Make → Model

Lens → Focal Length (optional)

Make → Lens

Clicking a node filters the current view, similar to how the Date tree works.

Use Cases

Quickly browse all photos taken with a specific camera or lens

Compare results across multiple bodies or lenses

Explore older archives without knowing exact metadata values

Reduce reliance on saved searches for common metadata groupings

Why Existing Tools Are Not Sufficient

Metadata filters are flat lists and do not scale well with large collections

Advanced searches require setup and are less discoverable

Manual tag trees can approximate this behavior but require ongoing maintenance and duplication of metadata

Additional Notes

This could be implemented as an optional view to avoid UI clutter

Similar functionality exists in other DAM tools (e.g. Lightroom’s metadata browser)

Backed by existing indexed EXIF data, so no new metadata standards are required

Thank you for considering this enhancement. I believe it would significantly improve discoverability and browsing workflows in large digiKam libraries.

BR, Robert