Where are Windows photo albums actually saved

The Windows 10 photo app allows you to save pictures to "Creations" such as photo albums. Where are these albums located in Explorer?

The implication from what I've read is that they are somewhere on the user's OneDrive - but I don't imagine the photos themselves are saved into an album, merely their filepaths. Either way I can't find this information.

Can I access the file paths associated with the images contained in one of these albums?

(NB, I don't want to upload to onedrive, I just want to know where the album data is saved on the machine usually, and whether I can access it from explorer or the command line say)

Solution 1:

The albums are stored locally in a SQLite database that you can find at %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.Photos_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalState\MediaDb.v1.sqlite This database contains details of all your albums, as well as metadata from images (date taken, camera models, etc.) as well as information extracted using the AI engine (such as recognising faces, types of scenes, etc.).

Deleting this file will not delete the online versions of the albums, and these will travel from device to device (unlike the image metadata, and facial recognition).

OneDrive doesn't store the albums in a discreet file, but instead stores it as part of the database it uses to correlate files to their filenames, modified date and other metadata that would normally be stored in the filesystem.