Finding images that are not in a folder?

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Brett

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  1. macOS 10.14 Mojave
I have searched help and other places to no avail :(
I have a couple of thousand images more than are in folders. How can I find them?

Brett
 
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You need to give us more information. All images must be in folders. How are you counting these things? Where is the discrepancy you see?
 
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Every image file on your disc drive will be in a MacOS file system folder. Every image listed in your Lightroom catalog will be associated with an image file filesystem folder. If you have moved or deleted image files using Finder, LR will not be aware of this action and will still have the images listed in their original folder. These images will show in the catalog as missing and a small (!) icon will show alongside the image in grid view. You can make a collection of missing images by using the "Find All Missing Photos" sub menu item in the "Library" menu.

If you have created "Virtual Copies", these will count as images in the catalog and each will be associated with the "Master Image Copy" image file. So, there will be two (or more) image copies listed in the catalog the point to the location of the same master image file.

You should have your answer in one or both of the above cases.
 
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Hal P Anderson said:
You need to give us more information. All images must be in folders. How are you counting these things? Where is the discrepancy you see?
Click to expand...

Hi Hal
I have 1 catalog with 9870 photographs
At the top of my folder list "Lightroom Pictures" with 7637 photos in yearly subfolders.

Obviously, at some point, my imports went somewhere other than "Lightroom Pictures"

What I was wanting is perhaps a "Find" request of "photos not in a folder.
Other than that, I can only see clicking on All Photographs in the catalog section and going through them one by one :(, looking at each ones metadata for the folder location?

I have done a search, Cletus, for Missing Photos and that found just one.

Thank you for your interest. It could/probably means I'm a complete neanderthal :)

Brett
 
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Have you checked for virtual copies, as Cletus suggested? They will contribute to the total of photographs listed in the catalog, but not the total of files containing photos as tabulated by your operating system. Also there's no need to beat yourself up, LR has a learning curve for everyone.
 
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Brett said:
Hi Hal
I have 1 catalog with 9870 photographs
At the top of my folder list "Lightroom Pictures" with 7637 photos in yearly subfolders.

Obviously, at some point, my imports went somewhere other than "Lightroom Pictures"

What I was wanting is perhaps a "Find" request of "photos not in a folder.
Other than that, I can only see clicking on All Photographs in the catalog section and going through them one by one :(, looking at each ones metadata for the folder location?

I have done a search, Cletus, for Missing Photos and that found just one.

Thank you for your interest. It could/probably means I'm a complete neanderthal :)

Brett
Click to expand...
Brett,

I'm a Windows user (although I did use UNIX way back when ...). Windows has a file search function that is part of Explorer, or can also be done by opening up a cmd window. I think the equivalent on MacOS is a "terminal window." If so, and you are comfortable with the command line, do some sort of "ls -l" command for your photo filetypes. Yes, I know that's a real brute force approach and really ugly, but if you can capture the output of that command, then you will be able to compare that output with the photos in LR's catalog.

Phil Burton
 
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The total of All Photographs must always equal the total of photos that are counted in the folders listed in the Folders Panel. It doesn't matter if you have lots of VCs or missing images, the totals should always match. So either you are not interpreting the Folders Panel correctly, or you have a catalog (or preferences file) corruption. It would be a lot easier to diagnose the issue if you posted a screenshot of the left hand panel in Lightroom's Library module, which includes the Catalog Panel and the Folders Panel (all the way down to, and including, just the header of the Collections Panel).
 
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Perhaps the OP can clarify where the numbers come from that give the disparity. Is the 9870 count given by LR, or by the operating system? If by LR, where is the number given? And where is 7637 value given?

Meanwhile, in trying to understand this I have come across two issues of my own, which I hope someone can clarify.

1. When I highlight the folder containing all my photos, in the breadcrumb bar I see "76723 of 76727". Looking at more deeply-nested folders I can find a folder that has "209 of 210" stated; the grid view shows 209 photos, and I don't know how (easily) to find the missing one. Windows explorer shows 208 files in that folder, and LR shows there is one virtual copy, so that fits. Where (if anywhere) is the missing one?

2. When I click on "Find Missing Photos", I get a few dozen hits, all of which look to be ones that I've exported. I checked a few of the originals and they are still in the catalog, so I'm hoping it's safe to delete these "Missing photos". But I don't understand why these ghost copies are present. FWIW, when I exported them I did so into a different folder on a different drive.
 
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Update (since I can't edit the above): Under "mystery 1", there were actually two virtual copies, not the "one" I stated. The second one turned out to have the copy and the original stacked; when I unstacked it, the total rose to 210 and there was no longer a disparity. Following Victoria's book's always-helpful advice, I then highlighted the top folder and went to "Photo/Stacking/Expand All Stacks", and voila the numbers now match up.

I'm not suggesting that the OP do the same--there are doubtless valid reasons to stack--but perhaps some experimenting with one or a few photos would uncover whether this is a problem.
 
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12359


12358


Hope i've done this right
B
 
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Not really.....we need to see all of the Folders Panel. Suggest you collapse the "Lightroom Pictures" folder to make it easier.
 
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Having problems logging in to this forum... Help!
Can someone ask why I can't log in. The say my email address is wrong however they're sending me emails on that address?

Also included is a changed screenshot of the initial problem. ith as many folders as I could show
Brett
 

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Brett, that screenshot is still not giving us what we need to see (refer to my post #7 above). Again, I suggest you click that down-arrow to the left of the "Lightroom Pictures" folder, which will "collapse" all those year sub-folders below it into one line. That then will allow you to show us what folders, if any, lie below Lightroom Pictures.
 
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Brett said:
Having problems logging in to this forum... Help!
Can someone ask why I can't log in. The say my email address is wrong however they're sending me emails on that address?
Click to expand...
Looks like you logged in ok. Are you still having trouble Brett? I wonder if you were trying to login on the main Members page instead of on the forum. Single sign on is coming soon but our developer has had the flu, so they're separate logins at the moment.
 
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Brett said:
Getting there, lol
My Book is my separate backup drive
Click to expand...
OK, one more screenshot....expand the MyBook drive in the Folders Panel so that we can see the contents.
 
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It's where Lightroom thinks they are. The All Photographs total will be the sum of all images listed in all the drives in the Folders Panel, so if you add what's listed on the MyBook drive to what's listed on the MacHD drive you should get the correct total.

Obviously you need to figure out if those pictures listed on the MyBook drive are backup copies of the images in the "Lightroom Pictures" folder structure on the MacHD drive, or if they are original images that you imported onto the wrong drive,

Generally speaking, you shouldn't have your backup drive appearing in the Lightroom Folders Panel, it's too easy to get confused.
 
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We seem to be tracking down all the basic errors I made.
When I imported new photos, I set "My Book" to also receive a second copy. under "Originals" from lightroom. Obviously a mistake!

Not only that, I have also noticed in my "Lightroom Pictures" on my hard drive, there are many singular pics not in folders,
Looks to me like a colossal balls up from a person not knowing the basics of folders. Probably due to changing their locations in the lightroom folder on my Mac rather than changing their location in Lightroom :( BASIC LIGHTROOM ERROR!!! rtfi !!!
Also many of the singular photos are not correctly dated as their actual creation date. The one selected in this screenshot below was actually taken in 2008

12377


So, do you think I should wipe all my lightroom catalogue and start again by selecting all JPG, CR2 etc files and import them again, hoping that the "Do not import duplicate" sorts out the many dupe photos in various locations.
Then sort out the "Created dates" through "edit capture time"

Either way, looks like a lot of work, but now I'm retired, maybe it'll stop any ennui?

Brett
(Don't you sleep, Jim?)
Thanks very much for your help.
 
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