lbeck
Active Member
- Joined
- May 21, 2015
- Messages
- 150
- Location
- Hillsborough, NC
- Lightroom Experience
- Intermediate
- Lightroom Version
- 6.x
Bottom line - is there a way to filter a smart collection for the missing files marker?
I've known for some time that my library is fraught with too many duplicates. I didn't know how many until I ran duplicate finder plugin and find that I have about 20K dups! This is the result of importing photos from several different HDDs, CDs, DVDs, SDs, etc. Not surprising because of my paranoia regarding throwing away images to an irretrievable place.
I have a pretty good (though not complete) understanding of the filtering process and the files are too similar to filter by any criteria that I can find (size, date, etc.)
I understand that there is no way to blanket delete dups for good reason. But I should be able to eliminate ~10K of duplicate files. I've begun the process that will likely take weeks of spare time on and off. I'm able to find the folders where the dups are located, delete the folders (in Windows file manager) that are truly duplicates, and see the ! where the missing files are in Lr catalog. Is there some way to then filter for missing files?
I'm tempted to simply start a new catalog but still for the 40K+ images I will need to determine what has already been imported since some are in different folders by event, person, and/or date. I eventually plan to have a date-only library and take the other stuff and place it in the keyword box since one date will likely have dozens of photos e.g., from the folder "John Smith Wedding".
So I'll accept any advice or criticism regarding my dilemma. But for now I'd like to determine if there is a way to aggregate the missing files (the ones with the ! notation) so that I can bulk-mark them as a set (probably with a color label) for later removal as I become more confident that they are truly worthless duplicates. I know that I can select each dup individually but they frequently are scattered through my "all duplicates" smart collection.
Thanks for your help.
I've known for some time that my library is fraught with too many duplicates. I didn't know how many until I ran duplicate finder plugin and find that I have about 20K dups! This is the result of importing photos from several different HDDs, CDs, DVDs, SDs, etc. Not surprising because of my paranoia regarding throwing away images to an irretrievable place.
I have a pretty good (though not complete) understanding of the filtering process and the files are too similar to filter by any criteria that I can find (size, date, etc.)
I understand that there is no way to blanket delete dups for good reason. But I should be able to eliminate ~10K of duplicate files. I've begun the process that will likely take weeks of spare time on and off. I'm able to find the folders where the dups are located, delete the folders (in Windows file manager) that are truly duplicates, and see the ! where the missing files are in Lr catalog. Is there some way to then filter for missing files?
I'm tempted to simply start a new catalog but still for the 40K+ images I will need to determine what has already been imported since some are in different folders by event, person, and/or date. I eventually plan to have a date-only library and take the other stuff and place it in the keyword box since one date will likely have dozens of photos e.g., from the folder "John Smith Wedding".
So I'll accept any advice or criticism regarding my dilemma. But for now I'd like to determine if there is a way to aggregate the missing files (the ones with the ! notation) so that I can bulk-mark them as a set (probably with a color label) for later removal as I become more confident that they are truly worthless duplicates. I know that I can select each dup individually but they frequently are scattered through my "all duplicates" smart collection.
Thanks for your help.