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I don’t think the Catalog is connected to the photograph files, how to connect?

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newmoon

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Premium Cloud Member
Joined
May 16, 2011
Messages
78
Lightroom Version Number
11.4.1
Operating System
  1. macOS 12 Monterey
I’ve had all sorts of difficulties changing over from Windows to a Mac and transferring LR Classic and the photograph files. Part of the problem was my lack of understanding of the Mac file structure (and the Mac in general) and part that I used a Samsung T5 external drive to transfer the catalog and files and it transferried an unrecognised D:/ path. I had a previous forum post about this issue and received help.
The Samsung T5 was never intended as a permanent solution and in retrospect I wish I’d used a different option.
Today I set about transferring some of the photograph files to the Mac internal SSD and some to a Sandisk external drive (which was a breeze to use compared with the Samsung).
I then removed the Samsung in LR Classic folders before synchronising and importing from the Mac internal drive and Sandisk SSD. This went smoothly also, except I had to untick the suspected duplicates box as it thought everything was a duplicate, even though there were no photographs in LR.
Now I have the files in the correct locations and showing in LR Classic correctly EXCEPT I’m pretty sure they aren’t ‘connected’ to the Catalog, or at least not to the processing history. I say this as I can’t see some of my edits and there are no edit histories. The histories just show Import 30.06.2022.
I suspect the Catalog is linked to the Samsung drive files that I removed.
If I’m understanding this correctly what’s the solution please?
Could I delete the Catalog and reimport it or something?

As an aside, even when I had the Samsung path working, LR never imported the majority of my 2021 and 2022 photographs for some reason, even though they were definitely on the Samsung and I the expected folders. I synchronized multiple times and it made no difference. I think it seemed to think these were duplicates also but I cannot work out why.

Thanks For any help.
 
Synchronising is not the way to do this. I'm afraid your best option is to start all over again. The problem is pretty simple. Windows uses drive letters, so in the Lightroom catalog when used on Windows the paths would begin with D:/... MacOS does not use drive letters however, it uses disk names. So on your Mac the path will eventually be Diskname/... What you need to do is 'reconnect' the paths.
https://www.lightroomqueen.com/how-move-lightroom-to-new-computer/
https://www.lightroomqueen.com/lightroom-photos-missing-fix/
 
Synchronising is not the way to do this. I'm afraid your best option is to start all over again. The problem is pretty simple. Windows uses drive letters, so in the Lightroom catalog when used on Windows the paths would begin with D:/... MacOS does not use drive letters however, it uses disk names. So on your Mac the path will eventually be Diskname/... What you need to do is 'reconnect' the paths.
https://www.lightroomqueen.com/how-move-lightroom-to-new-computer/
https://www.lightroomqueen.com/lightroom-photos-missing-fix/
Thank you and I think so too, though I don’t see a need to delete and start again with the actual photograph files transfer now I have them in the locations I want, do you?
I’ll remove the Catalog and delete LR then reinstall LR and re-transfer the Catalog and try link the folders the photographs are in.
Does that sound like the best option please?
 
Thank you and I think so too, though I don’t see a need to delete and start again with the actual photograph files transfer now I have them in the locations I want, do you?
I’ll remove the Catalog and delete LR then reinstall LR and re-transfer the Catalog and try link the folders the photographs are in.
Does that sound like the best option please?
No, you don’t have to transfer the photos again as long as they were copied to an identical hierarchy. You don’t have to reinstall Lightroom either. It’s the catalog that is the center piece and where everything was done wrong, so delete that one and copy it again. Then use the ‘missing folders’ procedure to relink these.
 
No, you don’t have to transfer the photos again as long as they were copied to an identical hierarchy. You don’t have to reinstall Lightroom either. It’s the catalog that is the center piece and where everything was done wrong, so delete that one and copy it again. Then use the ‘missing folders’ procedure to relink these.
Thank you and that has worked perfectly. Because I have photographs in folders by year with four years on the internal drive and older years on the Sandisk external drive, I had to connect the years individually, but that was a very minor inconvenience, compared with getting my processing history back.
I think I will be able to change the top hierarchy folders to ‘Internal Drive’ and ‘Sandisk Drive’ and I’ll only need to do two reconnections/find the folders.
My intention is to keep four years on the internal drive and anything older on the external drive, so at the end of each year I will transfer a folder and have to reconnect it.
Thank you again.
 
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