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Creating and Switching Between Multiple Databases

ACDSee allows you to create multiple databases and switch between them at any time, giving you complete organizational control over your photo collections.

When you open ACDSee for the first time, (and up until you create additional databases), you will be using the original database called Default.dbin. It is located in: C:\Users\<Your Name>\AppData\Local\ACD Systems\Catalogs\<Version #>. All additional databases that you create will be stored in this same location, unless you specify otherwise.

You can configure ACDSee to display the database it is currently running in the title bar of the application.

To Create a New Database:

  1. In Manage mode, open File | Database | New...
  2. In the New Database dialog box, enter a name for your new database.
  3. Browse to choose the location where the database will be stored, or leave it set to the existing location to store the new database with your existing database, Default.dbin.

    4. The database file will be stored with a folder of the same name. The database file and folder must always share exactly the same name, or ACDSee will not be able to connect to the database.

  4. If you would like to have the name of your database displayed in the title bar of the application, select the Show database filename in title bar checkbox.
  5. Click OK.
  6. A dialog will appear asking you if you would like to switch to your newly created database. Select Yes or No. If you select Yes, ACDSee will restart and run with the new database.

To Switch from One Database to Another:

In Manage mode, do one of the following:

Open File | Database | Open...

In the Open Database dialog, browse to the database file (*.dbin) you want to use and click Open.

Open File | Database | Recent.

Select one of your recently used databases.

To Quickly Launch ACDSee in a Specific Database Using Command Line Switch:

  1. Create a shortcut to ACDSee. It is recommended that you name this shortcut something that corresponds to the name of the database you want to open.
  2. In the shortcut properties, set the target to C:\Program Files\ACD Systems\ACDSee\<Version #>\ACDSee<Version #>.exe" /db "C:\Users\<Your Name>\AppData\Local\ACD Systems\Catalogs\<Version #>\<Name of Your Database>.dbin".