Downloads Folder Showing in Catalog

[dbvirago]

Lightroom Version Number

13.3

Operating System

1. Windows 10

I just noticed this recently, so not sure how long it has been going on, but at the top of my Folders tree, the default Windows Downloads folder now shows up. My catalog as always been a sub-folder of my Documents folder: Documents/Photography/Images. I have never imported any folder outside that directory.

Soon after I noticed that, I got a new laptop, so I installed fresh and built a completely new catalog. After installation, I clicked on Import and pointed to the Images folder listed above. After it was done, The Downloads folder is back at the top.

I can remove the folder from the catalog, but it comes back. By process of elimination, I discovered if I do a Synchronize Folder on one of the sub-folders, I get a ton of 'new' images. Since I just did a complete Import, there should be no 'missing' images. If I right-click on any of the missing images and then Find in Explorer, they are all in the Downloads folder. The ones that say No Preview are Mac files from a set of files I downloaded a few years back. Since I don't need those files, I can delete the folders/files from my Downloads folder, but why is LR looking there to begin with?

Any ideas or help appreciated.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

Lightroom is only looking there if you tell it to. Apparently you imported 256 images from that downloads folder some day, and the second screenshot suggests you have selected it again as source in the import dialog (if what is shown are images in that folder, that is).

BTW, you shouldn't have started with a new catalog: How do I move Lightroom to a new computer? | The Lightroom Queen

 

[dbvirago]

I understand that's not intended behavior, but it's what happened. This was a fresh install, done last night. I only did one import of the Images folder and its subfolders. As soon as that import was complete, I had two main folders Downloads, which I have never used in any Lightroom installation and the Images folder.

Yes, I know how to move, I've done that over half a dozen laptops since V1, but I wanted a fresh and smaller catalog. Everything was either completed Jpgs or untouched raw files. I didn't need any edits or previews of 99% of the 50K images in the folder tree.

 

[Califdan]

You may want to take a peek at your LR/cloud sync settings. First are you syncing images to the Cloud based LR ecosystem and if so, what is the default folder for LR/Classic to use on images the originated in the Cloud versions of LR? It is possible that this is set to your downloads folder and those images originated on your phone or tablet or other LR/Cloudy ecosystem tool.

 

[dbvirago]

I'll have to take a look at that when I get back to the laptop this afternoon. I never intentionally synced to the cloud on the last few laptops, as I haven't used the mobile app in several years and didn't have a need. But there has been so many updates the past couple of years, a default could have been reset.

But the odd thing is, if I remove that directory from my Folders, it only comes back if I synchronize the physical folder Images/Photography/Misc.
When it brings up that list of the 256 images and I right click and show in Explorer, they show they are in Downloads. And again, I can't think of any reason on any version or device I would have ever synced to downloads. In fact, I have had the exact same folder structure for my documents, including all photo files for about 15 years.

At any rate, I'll figure out how to get rid of it, or just minimize that folder and ignore it. It's just puzzling.

 

[Jim Wilde]

At any rate, I'll figure out how to get rid of it, or just minimize that folder and ignore it. It's just puzzling.

Is it possible you've got an alias/symbolic link somewhere in the Images folder tree which is linking to the Downloads folder?

 

[dbvirago]

Wow, The more I dig... When I click Sync folder it shows that there are two missing images. Then when I click synchronize, suddenly it's 256.

TL;DR I fixed it, but no idea how it happened.

So, since trying to figure out how it happened was giving me a headache, first I let it import all of them. This time there were four phantom folders. Since they were all either junk or dupes, I deleted them from the disk and removed the folders. I then optimized the catalog and did another sync of the Misc folder. It still said import 2 new photos, so I clicked synchronize, and this time I have 109 files. I repeat the process. It says they are all corrupt, and doesn't import any. I then begin an iterative process of finding the mystery files and deleting them from the disk. Rinse and repeat until nothing shows up. In the end, it still says there are 2 New files to import, so it still wants to go through the sync process, but comes up to a blank screen. So, I begin drilling through the Misc sub-folders until I find an old ACDSee [Originals] folder which I deleted.

Finally all clean. Lesson learned: Never do whatever it was I did.

 

[dbvirago]

Jim, it had to be something embedded in one of the files as the images themselves were the only things that came over to the new machine. And since I had multiple backups of the old machine, I deleted every file in the structure that wasn't a jpg, raw, tiff, or PSD.