Is it possible to move tags set by Shotwell in the metadata of the images to the Shotwell's database?

[kostix (Konstantin Khomoutov)]

I have a sizeable collection of photos tagged in Shotwell with the setting “Write tags, titles and other metadata to photo files” on.
That is, all the tags (I’m only interested in tags at the moment) are maintained in the metadata of the images.

Now I’m looking for an answer to this question: if I now untick that setting, what exactly happens?
Would shotwell transfer existing tags to its internal database?

I guess not, but I failed to find a definitive answer by searching the 'net.

If the answer really is that no, the new value of the setting will only apply to the photos imported after the switch, the question is: is there a way to somehow move the tags from the metadata of the imported photos into the Shotwell’s database?

The background: the idea of writing tags into photos seemed sensible back then, but then I found that tweaking tags results in reuploading of the whole image files “to the cloud” when I sync them there.
Since contemporary photo files tend to have somewhat large sizes, I think that syncing up just the DB looks like a more sensible approach, and would like to switch.

I’m using Shotwell 0.30.17 – “Celle” (stock Debian 11 “Buster”) with GNOME 43.4.

[jensgeorg]

There is no need to move this information into the database. Even with the write back option enabled, the database is the primary source for all meta-data changes you do in Shotwell.

Unticking this option will just stop Shotwell from updating the image.