• Welcome to the Lightroom Queen Forums! We're a friendly bunch, so please feel free to register and join in the conversation. If you're not familiar with forums, you'll find step by step instructions on how to post your first thread under Help at the bottom of the page. You're also welcome to download our free Lightroom Quick Start eBooks and explore our other FAQ resources.
  • Dark mode now has a single preference for the whole site! It's a simple toggle switch in the bottom right-hand corner of any page. As it uses a cookie to store your preference, you may need to dismiss the cookie banner before you can see it. Any problems, please let us know!

Catalogue - How to un-merge folders

Status
Not open for further replies.
Joined
Sep 16, 2012
Messages
78
Location
North -West UK
Lightroom Experience
Intermediate
Lightroom Version
6.x
I am having problems - self induced I may add - with my catalogue. I decided to try and sort my 'missing' files and have got into an even deeper mess. Somewhere along the line, I have obviously accepted an offer to merge all of the folders. Can anyone help as to how I can retrieve this situation so that my catalogue can be restored to its initial condition. At present the Catalogue header just shows the number of images therein, having no folders/files underneath that header. All of the folders are merged and the images are shown within the main part of the screen, some though are missing and a ? is shown in the top R corner.

I enjoy using Lightroom, but the catalogue and me don't seem to get on sometimes as well as we should!
 
Last edited:
Howard,

Welcome to the Forum!

Probably, you just somehow made your Folders panel disappear. Right click on the "Catalog" header and choose Show All.

Lightroom Database-4 - Adobe Photoshop Lightroom - Library_2012-09-16_12-27-15.jpg

Hal
 
Thank you for your welcome.

We are getting there, but still not 100%.
I arranged my catalog in 'by the year' format. So, I would have a folder named after the main subject, and sub-folders for each year.


I have followed your instruction and now have in the folders panel, a main folder (showing the number of files therin 5,000) and the 2012 sub-folder is the only sub-folder shown - it has the exact number of files - in other words, the 2012 sub has also got images from every year in it.
The remaining folders are listed in grey with a question mark. When I open a file, I get the message 'file named xxx is offline or missing'.


Do you know how I can get my list of sub-folders back in addition to solving the 'greyed out' folders.

I should add, it appears all of the files contain the above message re file missing etc.
I hope all of this makes sense!
 
Last edited:
If you could post a screenshot of the Folders Panel which shows these greyed-out folders, that would be a good start.

However, relinking 'missing' files/folders can only be done if the actual files/folders can be located. Lightroom 'thinks' the missing folders are in a certain place, but obviously they aren't physically in that location. So where are they? We need to know the answer to that in order to tell Lightroom of the new location.

Do you know where they are?
 
Screenshot attached.
One folder 'Railway Main File' holds 5097 files which are divided into sub-folders titled by year. All of the folders and sub-folders are shown in the folders panel but, with the exception of 2012, they are all grey. You will see that the 2012 sub folder, is for some reason, holding all of the files that are held in the main folder - it should only contain its own images - just a hundred or more. At present, it is a copy of the main folder.

Capture.PNG
 
You may be misinterpreting the figures you see there. There is a setting ("Show Photos in Subfolders") which, if set, will show for each folder the total of any images in that folder PLUS the total of any images in any sub-folders. I think you have that option checked, which is why both the top two levels in that folder hierarchy show 5097. Change the setting (Library menu) and take the screenshot again.

I repeat what I said earlier....to fix this you have to find where the image files currently are so that you can update Lightroom....do you know where they are?
 
I have found them - thanks to your prompting. I looked in My Pictures then into a folder I had, titled Lightroom, and there was the LR3 and LR4 catalogs. I upgraded to LR4 last week. I repeated the transfer or upgrade of files from LR3 to LR4 and they have been restored into LR4. I attach a new screen shot - what I cannot answer now is that the parent file 'Railway main file' is showing zero files when it should be 3000 plus.
Capture 3.PNG
 
I have now solved the outstanding issue mentioned above and I am, or should I say, my catalog, is back to where it was before I sent it sideways. I still have one or two issues about missing files, but I will work on that.
Can I thank both of you for taking the time to help - I will no doubt require some of it in the future no doubt.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top