Delete all and start all over again

[Nadine]

Lightroom Version Number

Lightroom cc

Operating System

1. Windows 10

Hello everyone, I have been super annoyed with my Lightroom organisation but recently something happened that made me wanna chuck my computer and everything out of the window: it's a bit tricky to explain and I'm not sure if there s any point as I do not understand what happened. From 1 day to the other without me knowingly changing anything most of my files are gone. When I import photos I save them on an external drive. The photos are still on the drive. But Lightroom doesnt seem to see them anymore. Some files are still displayed in grey but have 0 pics , most files arent displayed at all any more. Something similar has happened before and I had to import EVERYTHING again.. (not sure if that was the right thing to do because the pictures might still have been somewhere in Lightroom but just not in the place where they re supposed to - so mayb I have them double now..) Honestly I m super confused and this whole Lightroom of mine is a mess. In my All-Pictures catalogue are approx. 40.000 pictures, (so the pictures must still be somewhere in LR), in the catalogue called "missing photos" are approx 39500 pics... Tried "find missing pics" but doesnt do anything... I wonder if its just smarter to delete EVERYTHING out of LR and start all over new. Just importing 10 mins daily or somtheing until all is back in place... But how to wipe out everything out of LR?
If someone could help I would b super happy! Thanks in advance!! Nadine

 

[Jim Wilde]

And another question: When I used to import photos I used to have "Second copy at following location: (and chose my back up on onedrive) " ticked. But this way ALL the photos used to be backed up - as well those that I later deleted/rejected in LR. How do you handle the back up procedure? I'm thinking now, probably better to just copy what I ve added or changed on my files on my hard drive to my back up on onedrive... But then again that's much more work than just importing a copy to Onedrive each time I import...

I use the "Second Copy" option on every import, but I do not regard that copy as anything other than a temporary copy of the contents of the memory card, which them allows me to safely reformat the card if needed. I use different processes for my "true" backups, which are incremental/synced backups, so automatically taking care of the culling deletes. Once the latest import has been incorporated in the scheduled backups, it's safe to delete the corresponding "second copy" (when I remember, usually at the same time as I manually delete older catalog backups).

 

[Nadine]

Basically, the collection that you are trying to delete is an existing synced collection, which means every photo in it is also synced So the prompt basically is asking if you want the images in that synced collection to also be removed from sync when the collection is also deleted. The images themselves are not deleted from Classic, so remain in their Classic folders on the hard drive, but LR just wants to know if you want them unsynced (which would then delete them from the cloud).

I thought every photo is being synced regardless of whether it's in a collection or not?

 

[Nadine]

I use the "Second Copy" option on every import, but I do not regard that copy as anything other than a temporary copy of the contents of the memory card, which them allows me to safely reformat the card if needed. I use different processes for my "true" backups, which are incremental/synced backups, so automatically taking care of the culling deletes. Once the latest import has been incorporated in the scheduled backups, it's safe to delete the corresponding "second copy" (when I remember, usually at the same time as I manually delete older catalog backups).

Ok makes sense! So you don't do your "true" backuping via Lightroom but you use another software or manually copy files to the backup?

 

[Nadine]

The Missing Photos collection only updates on command, and just tells you which photos it can't find. Then to fix it, you would need these instructions: Lightroom thinks my photos are missing—how do I fix it?

Thanks for this reply. In this post I ve read "Do not use syncronize Folder to remove missing files and import them again at their new location as you'll lose all of your LR Settings"
What do you mean by "lose all of my LR Settings"? Will I lose the adjustments that I ve made on pictures in this folder? Or is my whole LR Catalogue affected?
I have a lot of missing photos and I know well where they are but when I try to lead LR to the location it wouldn't see them. I tried "Syncronize Folder" on a missing folder that I don't care much about and all the photos were found..
Aswell some of the missing folders are grey and have a "?" but most of the folders are just grey and have no "?"... For those that are grey and no questionmark there has been no change of Location but the folder is just gey and shows 0 photos and I dont know why.
Plus some folders are just not shown in the folder panel even though I know that I've imported them at some point... Wouldn't be a problem to import again but I don't want duplicates. If I check "don't import duplicates" it probably just compares the file names in that very folder - and not the whole catalogue?
Cheers, Nadine

 

[Jim Wilde]

I thought every photo is being synced regardless of whether it's in a collection or not?

Every photo added/imported to any of the "cloud" apps (Mobile, Desktop, Web) will indeed automatically sync down to Classic, but the reverse is not true, i.e. images in Classic will only sync when the user elects to do so. That can be done by putting images into a collection which is then sync enabled (so all images in that collection will sync), OR you can sync images which are NOT in a synced collection by adding them to the All Synced Photographs special collection. But it is entirely possible to have many images in the Classic catalog which are not synced at all, which is why you get that message when you try to delete a synced collection asking if you want to leave the images synced or not.

 

[Jim Wilde]

Ok makes sense! So you don't do your "true" backuping via Lightroom but you use another software or manually copy files to the backup?

Correct. I don't take a narrow view of "backing up Lightroom", instead I take the wider view of "backing up my system", which includes not just Lightroom but all other critical data. In my experience many people seem to focus their backup strategy on Lightroom only, and tend to forget they'll likely have plenty of other important data on their systems which also needs to be backed up.

I use a combination of backup tools: Time-Machine, Crashplan (cloud backup), and Chronosync backup utility.

 

[Nadine]

Every photo added/imported to any of the "cloud" apps (Mobile, Desktop, Web) will indeed automatically sync down to Classic, but the reverse is not true, i.e. images in Classic will only sync when the user elects to do so. That can be done by putting images into a collection which is then sync enabled (so all images in that collection will sync), OR you can sync images which are NOT in a synced collection by adding them to the All Synced Photographs special collection. But it is entirely possible to have many images in the Classic catalog which are not synced at all, which is why you get that message when you try to delete a synced collection asking if you want to leave the images synced or not.

Ok that makes sense now - thanks!!

 

[Nadine]

Correct. I don't take a narrow view of "backing up Lightroom", instead I take the wider view of "backing up my system", which includes not just Lightroom but all other critical data. In my experience many people seem to focus their backup strategy on Lightroom only, and tend to forget they'll likely have plenty of other important data on their systems which also needs to be backed up.

I use a combination of backup tools: Time-Machine, Crashplan (cloud backup), and Chronosync backup utility.

Ok rght, thanks for these hints - I ll check if these backup tools would work for me too! Thanks again!!