Lightroom - tearing my hair out.....

jerry12953

jerry12953

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Jeremy Moore
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I love the image processing tools in Lightroom, but its "file management" drives me nuts.

All I want to do is move some folders / files from an internal drive to an external one.

Can I do such a simple task ? No.

I look it up in the index of Martin Evening's book....ah, straight to p219, where it says....

"you can simply move folders and files to a new hard disk and Lightroom keeps track of them."

But it doesn't actually tell you how to do it.

Can anyone give me step-by-step instructions, suitable for a simpleton, please....
 
Simply use drag and drop within LR!

Click on folder you want moved, drag it to where you want it moved to, then release!
 
Drag and drop it's a simple as that.

Plug in you new hard drive, Start Lightroom

You'll see the HD come up in the left pane in Library.

Now click to highlight the parent folder you want to move, and holding down the mouse button simply drag that folder to the new drive.

Lightroom will ask you if you really want to move the files. You say OK and off it goes. Depending on the number of files it may take some time , so don't get impatient. When it's done you'll see that the files have been moved from one disk to another and lightroom knows where they are.
 
theMusicMan said:
Simply use drag and drop within LR!

Click on folder you want moved, drag it to where you want it moved to, then release!
Click to expand...

Excellent! Must admit I hadn't thought of that.:cuckoo: At least I'll know what to do next time.

Now then.

Those folders which I did manage to move (somehow) have that little question mark on them which tells me the actual files are missing. How do I get the files to correspond to the thumbnails?

Then there's the folder which says it has 102 files in it but there's only one.....

Then there are the folders which don't show up in the Left hand column of Lightroom, but do show up in Explorer.....
 
Chappers said:
Drag and drop it's a simple as that.

Plug in you new hard drive, Start Lightroom

You'll see the HD come up in the left pane in Library.

Now click to highlight the parent folder you want to move, and holding down the mouse button simply drag that folder to the new drive.

Lightroom will ask you if you really want to move the files. You say OK and off it goes. Depending on the number of files it may take some time , so don't get impatient. When it's done you'll see that the files have been moved from one disk to another and lightroom knows where they are.
Click to expand...

Thanks chappers. It's so obvious really, but I was trying to do it using Export and all sorts of other things. Please see my other post for the problems I have through my ignorance.....
 
It looks like you have moved them ouside of Lightroom, so it doesn't know where to find them agai.

My suggestion is that you do all future moving of files reference by Lightroom from within Lightroom,that way it will always know where they are.

To sort out the current issue, click on the question mark, it will ask you to find relocate the file, so navigate to wherever you moved it, select the file and Lightroom should also find other files near it.
 
Craikeybaby said:
It looks like you have moved them ouside of Lightroom, so it doesn't know where to find them agai.

My suggestion is that you do all future moving of files reference by Lightroom from within Lightroom,that way it will always know where they are.

To sort out the current issue, click on the question mark, it will ask you to find relocate the file, so navigate to wherever you moved it, select the file and Lightroom should also find other files near it.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I think I have moved everything within LR. As for relocating the files, if you don't know where they are...........

As for some of the lost files, there are 3 copies of most of them showing up in Explorer, but they're invisible in LR........
 
Right click on the image - choose "show in explorer". It then gives you the option to browse to the new folder. The cool thing is it recognized other photos from the same shoot and repaths them too.
 
If you know where files are then simply re-import them into lightroom. Probsably import to a "temp" file then drag and drop them into the correct folder after the import. Simplest way I think.

OK you've still got files missing. Use windows file system to find the files for you. You have the file name from Lightroom with the question mark next to them. Simply use "Find" to discover where they are and then re-import.
 
Chappers said:
If you know where files are then simply re-import them into lightroom. Probsably import to a "temp" file then drag and drop them into the correct folder after the import. Simplest way I think.

OK you've still got files missing. Use windows file system to find the files for you. You have the file name from Lightroom with the question mark next to them. Simply use "Find" to discover where they are and then re-import.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I do understand what you're suggesting. I think my brain is so addled with all this that I'll leave it for a while before trying it.....
 
You need to synchronise the folder. Right click on it in LR, then select Synchronise.
 
If you are in Library mode and click on the folder, what appears in the Grid view?

Have you inadverently got a filter set? (done this a couple of times myself)

Is it definitely the same folder in both LR and Explorer, not just of the same name?

Can you post a screen shot?
 
JasonRS said:
If you are in Library mode and click on the folder, what appears in the Grid view?

Have you inadverently got a filter set? (done this a couple of times myself)

Is it definitely the same folder in both LR and Explorer, not just of the same name?

Can you post a screen shot?
Click to expand...

When I came back to the computer I found that the 102 files had mysteriously re-appeared in the correct folder. So that's good.

However, there's still the case of the missing 24 files, which have somehow got separated from their fellows from the same "shoot", and now have the dreaded question mark on them.

They are still with the rest of the shoot in Explorer, but I just cannot get them to show up in LR. I've tried synchronise, import and "locate missing folder/files". No joy.

They appear in grid view with the ? on them. I've switched "filters" off. They're definitely from the same folder.

Fraid I don't know how to do a screen shot.
 
I think you need to sit down quietly and read the manual carefully!
 
it really is worth taking the time to get to know this programme - stick with it.
 
I feel your pain Jerry. All I can say is stick with it and locate the 23 missing files manually.

I find it quite difficult too sometimes. I'm now more wary about importing files from locations that aren't final (ie importing from temp folders etc, knowing I'll be moving the files later).
 
You just need to get into the Lightroom way of thinking, once you have found the missing files make sure you only move files fromwithin Lightroom.

Personally I don't bother with stacks and groups and stick to collections, they are more like a folder on your hard disk for a particular event, wheras the actual files on the hard disk are just in folders by date (but could be in any order, or even in the same folder) as all the file organisation is done with Lightroom.
 
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