and we have posted it to StevenL a long time ago 
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Welcome, Wolfgang.
I prefer to rely only on the sidecar/.dop files ⌠rather than trust that the db will never become corrupted. So, I run PhotoLab from inside a âwrapperâ that first deletes the database (and the thumbnail cache) before invoking PL itself.
As your question suggests; PL then creates a fresh database each time (which it uses just for the convenience of that current session).
Note 1. There are some downsides to this approach (depending upon your needs) ⌠such as inability to use PL for its âdigital asset managementâ functionality ⌠and a few others that I forget ('cos there are none that I care about).
Note 2. This approach works for me 'cos I use PL on a Work-in-Progress folder - and then move the resulting {RAW+Sidecar/.dop} files off to an archive location - - Thereâs a tiny start-up penalty whilst PL creates a new db ⌠but itâs not then wading its way, sluggishly!, thru (potentially)1,000s of images.
Regards, John M
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Not strictly true because metadata gets written directly to non-RAW files and to XMP sidecars for RAW files - meaning you donât need the database for the purpose. Although you do still have to get PL to index the folders you want to search.
Of course, on a Mac, any metadata you write will be picked up by the standard macOS Spotlight mechanism so you can always use that for speedier searches without the need to index every time.
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Thatâs a bit misleading. Or maybe two bits⌠Metadata like tags in files (like your legendary app uses) - yes, but XMP files with keywords remain untouched by Spotlight. Spotlight is a speedier search than what Iâm used on a Windows machine, but the more files coming onboard, the more difficult gets itâs job.
Spotlight indexes XMP files as text files and are searchable for text content
You gave me a god laugh before I went to sleep today Joachim. I think I needed i bit of sarcasm today 
@Joanna yes, I was searching for some keywords not in XMPs yet - my mistake. But still: finding a couple of keywords laying around in some folders â what good is that for? âOpen up with Photolabâ? Each of them? Thatâs as good as any filmcan, need to develop the film first until I can see it.
Thereâs no interaction between spotlight and Photolab, so finding hundreds of XMP files doesnât help much?
Anyway, Iâm starting with more serious keywording, just because PLâs âprojectsâ are still in their diapers and C1 sucks enormously when I try to search an find collections by name. Giving users projects, collections and intelligent collections, but not even a basic search tool - what were these Danes smoking?
@Stenis youâre welcome, sleep well 
Which is why I wrote my own app, that uses Spotlight to find stuff in XMP files and then open the related RAW file(s) in whatever app I want. And I can specify a default app like PhotoLab if I want.
Because it uses Spotlight, there is no need to use a separate database or wait around to reindex it.
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How many tags or keywords are you using?
As many as I want and, for my purposes, it is usually keywords, some of which are hierarchical. My app contains a keyword manager module for adding, importing, renaming, deleting keywords and organising hierarchies, including updating any affected files.
Actually I was asking for a number, not for the abilities of your app 
I thought you are using tags for longer than I do, so you already had to find a solution for (I recall that special case) an orange being a colour, a fruit or a phone-company. And for all the other cases Wikipedia lists a dozen meanings. Also⌠well, I donât go that road. Knowing me I expect to lose interest in keywording within the next 5k images, after I revisited a couple of my old pics
Maybe the best pay back for using metadata is also to pupulate other common fields like Description, Caption, Copy right and
the Picture Taken elements for example. The importance of keyword is mainly for ones own house keeping of metadata. I guess searching for your keywords to find your images you might have published on the net is pretty meaning less because of all the search noise there.
Who are you tagging for?
Basically for myself and to be able to use filters/intelligent collections which in a way are also kind of filters. And I only use IPTC fields like title if I like to set one. Most of the time I think âif an image needs a title it has to be one which adds context I canât see in the imageâ. Which raises the next question âwhy didnât I find a perspective to show this context?â but sometimes these perspectives are limited, difficult to photograph or whatever.
I think very few images âstand for themselvesâ really.