Merge of Databases from X6 and X9 (and later versions)

[JKrewer]

I had installed X6 and added meta data to the photos, which are stored in the separate database, as I understand.
Then I had installed X9 on the same PC, and I think that was not an update installation, but a new installation (I do not remember being asked anything about updating the existing installation).
In X9 I continued to work on the photos, and added more/other meta data. Then I noticed that in particular the data about people that I had added in X6 are missing in X9. So it looks like the X9 installation had created a new database, not taking over the data from the X6 database.
Now, is it possible, and how, to merge the two databases?
When upgrading to a new version, now 2023, how do I make sure all my data will be available in the new version?

[LeviFiction]

Yeah with PSP the "Upgrade" is just pricing for buying the newest version of the software. You're not actually updating your current install with the latest features. Many users here on the forums have multiple versions of PSP installed on their computers each running their own databases and folder locations. PSP works hard to keep each version separate from the others.

I never use the database so I'm not familiar with all of the ins and outs. But in general you can create a backup of your database by going to File -> Database Backup -> Export. You can also import from a previous database backup by using the Import option.

What I don't know is if that will merge the database, or overwrite the database. Preferably you'll use the import option on a brand new install of PSP so that you're working with the previous data.

Here's my recommendation, in both PSP X6 and X9 perform a database backup by using the Export option. Then in X9 try and perform an import with the X6 version of the database. If it doesn't work you can restore your database to factory defaults (empty) and import the X9 backup you made so you don't lose anything if it doesn't work.

[JKrewer]

Thank you for the suggestion, LeviFiction.
I did the test: Importing the backup from X6 overwrites the database of X9, it does not merge.

[LeviFiction]

So your options then, as far as I can tell reading the help documentation, are 1) Manually go into either X6 or X9 (whichever has the least amount of work done in it) and recreate the work you've done previously. Note that if a file supports tags directly then adding those files to the manage side of PSP will auto-import the tags and update the database to identify which images have those tags. Images like JPEG format support tags directly, while formats like PNG technically don't. Or, more specifically, PSP doesn't support reading tags from PNG. But that's because the base format for PNG doesn't have a tags area in the file.

Or the second option would be to go through the database files and manually update everything to match. As I don't use Manage Mode I can't rightfully test this with any certainty or accuracy on how well it'll work. The database is saved in SQLite format so it's easy to read with the right software like SQLite Studio. But if you're not familiar with databases, it's not my preferred option. If you wanted to try sharing the databases privately I could take a look and see if there is something I can do manually but I offer no guarantees that would work.

But I would advise in some way manually updating one of the two versions of PSP so that you could be working from a merged database. Then in the future when you next upgrade the first thing you would do is you can export from your current version, and import into your new copy of PSP and you're not starting from scratch again.