Searching large numbers of files for similarity can take significant cpu time. Part of this is the time to compute the similarity matrix for each file.
If the Cache Thumbnails option is selected in Preferences/General, the similarity matrix, checksum, image size and Exif Date may also be cached. This will reduce the time needed for future searches.
If you frequently search on similarity and your images are in a tree arrangement under a single point, the
Create file similarity cache
from the top of the tree will generate the similarity data for all images.
Similarity data are stored in a folder hierarchy that mirrors the location of the source images. The data have the same name as the original appended by the file extension .sim.
The root of the hierarchy is:
$XDG_CACHE_HOME/geeqie/thumbnails/$HOME/.cache/geeqie/thumbnails/