Shotwell speichert normalerweise seine Datenbank und Vorschaubilder der Fotos im Ordner ~/.shotwell. Dieser Ordner enthält keine Fotos, sondern lediglich eine Datenbank mit einer Liste aller Fotos in der Shotwell-Bibliothek.

As an advanced feature, it's possible for you to have multiple Shotwell libraries, each of which has its own set of photos. Each library needs its own database directory. To launch Shotwell with an alternate library, specify an alternate database directory on the command line as follows: