Catalogs Folders created in Catalog at root level rather than as subfolders

[Steve Judges]

Lightroom Version Number

15.0.1

Operating System

1. macOS 26 Tahoe

My normal catalog folder structure is Pictures/Year/Year-Month/Year-Month-Day.

In the process of moving files to external storage, I noticed a number of Year-Month and Year-Month-Day folders at the same level in the Catalog folder hierarchy as Pictures. I'm guessing this occurred because on some Import, I must have inadvertently selected a folder node other than Pictures.

So - I figured it would be straightforward to just move those strays into where they below in the main catalog folder hierarchy by dragging and dropping within the Catalog folder in the Navigator pane. I have encountered several issues:

1. See attached image. I tried to move the 2026 folder hierarchy (32 files) under the Pictures folder. It told me that a 2026 folder already exists. So then I did a Show in Finder for the 2026 folder highlighted and it shows as under the Pictures folder on disk, as I would have expected. How can I move it to the proper location I the catalog hierarchy?

2. For some of the other stray folders (e.g. 2025-06-09 with 1 file), there is a subfolder with the same name within the main hierarchy with say 30 files according to the catalog. On disk, there are 31 files in that directory. When I try to drag the file from the "stray" folder into the main hierarchy version, I get "Error, file already exists" (which is true). What do I need to do to end up with a single version of the 2025-06-09 folder in the main structure and have it show 31 files (and not have a version of that folder at the root level).

Thank you

 

[clee01l]

You need to move (drag & drop) the contents of that folder into the one that already exists in the right position.
Once that folder is empty (according to Lightroom) you can remove it from the folder panel. If Finder shows it to be completely empty, you can delet it using Finder.

 

[Steve Judges]

Thanks for the quick reply and the explanation of how it works. When you say you need to drag and drop folder contents, do you mean in Lightroom or Finder?

If you mean in Lightroom, I don't see how. In the case of Issue 2 I have a folder with the correct date hierarchy name in the right place in the main folder hierarchy. I can't drag the folder (of the same name) into the main hierarchy because a folder by that name already exists. So I try dragging the one image associated with the accidental folder of the same name at the root hierarchy into the folder of the same name in the correct hierarchy and I get a "file already exists". error.

I'm starting to think I need to untangle all this in Finder and then start relinking?

 

[clee01l]

do you mean in Lightroom or Finder?

In Lightroom or else you will need to find the files in the catalog now reporting the as missing

In Lightroom Classic open the folder containing the images that you want to move and select these in grid view. Drage the selected image to the correct folder in the folder panel and drop them there.

 

[Steve Judges]

I did that and I get "file already exists". For some reason, my images from Nov 19 are split between:
10 of them in Pictures/2025/2025-11/2025-11-19 and
1 of them in 2025-11-19 at the same level as Pictures in the Macintosh HD volume with the Folders panel.

In the finder, there are 11 files in Pictures/2025/2025-11/2025-11-19

And if I say "Show in Finder", both of the Folder Panel entries point to the same place in the Finder.

An update - I just noticed that most of these folders at the root level contain images that were created using Enhanced Noise Reduction or an external edit in Photoshop. The actual files end up in the same folder in the Finder, but duplicated folder entries at the root level get created for the enhanced images.

 

[Steve Judges]

Perhaps this should be a separate issue, but I wondered if the Synchronize Folder command on the folder that had the 11 files might cause the additional file to be included. My understanding was that it was for picking up files that might have been added by some 3rd party process (in this case, Noise Reduction or Photoshop).

Instead it suggested I needed to re-import all 11 files, as opposed to just the one that wasn't included in the count of 10 it was showing.

Is this expected behaviour or does it suggest there may be something else going on with internal folder paths?

 

[Gnits]

The folder panel on the left in LrC looks like a File Explorer panel, with the massive constraint that it only shows folders of images imported to LrC.

If you have a folder of images in File Explorer but this folder is not in LrC… you can use the Import dialogue to drill down to that folder, it will give you thumbnails of the image contents and you can import these, if you wish) to LrC using the Add (rather than Move or Copy options.

If the folder is a subfolder of an existing LrC folder, right clicking on the parent folder and select the Synchronise option will also provide you with an option to import the folder.

All behaviour governed by a) option to show / hide images in subfolders and b) Import option to Ignore Duplicates.

 

[Jim Wilde]

This could be a case of the "Capitalisation" problem, i.e. something in the path for the "stray" year folders is different to the equivalent year folder under Pictures (i.e. LrC could be seeing a difference in capitalisation of one or more characters). This often happens after a change of system, e.g. username of "Steve" on one system and "steve" on the other. The OS doesn't worry about that, but LrC does. To test for this, simply hover the cursor over the 2025 folder that's under Pictures and make a careful note of the path that appears as a tool-tip. Then hover over the 2025 folder that appears outside/above Pictures and compare the paths, looking for any difference in capitalisation. If you find any, let us know as the fix is usually quite simple.

 

[clee01l]

I did that and I get "file already exists". For some reason, my images from Nov 19 are split between:
10 of them in Pictures/2025/2025-11/2025-11-19 and
1 of them in 2025-11-19 at the same level as Pictures in the Macintosh HD volume with the Folders panel.

In the finder, there are 11 files in Pictures/2025/2025-11/2025-11-19

And if I say "Show in Finder", both of the Folder Panel entries point to the same place in the Finder.

An update - I just noticed that most of these folders at the root level contain images that were created using Enhanced Noise Reduction or an external edit in Photoshop. The actual files end up in the same folder in the Finder, but duplicated folder entries at the root level get created for the enhanced images.

stray folders (e.g. 2025-06-09 with 1 file), there is a subfolder with the same name within the main hierarchy with say 30 files according to the catalog. On disk, there are 31 files in that directory.

I don't see how both of these conditions can be true.
But with the "both of the Folder Panel entries point to the same place in the Finder." I agree with Jim, it looks like a capitalization issue.

 

[Steve Judges]

Wow - well spotted Jim. The paths outside of the Pictures tree have "Steve" and those in the Pictures tree have "steve". I had looked at these paths several times and missed it. Show Finder goes to the same place in the Finder hierarchy with both.

As mentioned in one my updates, most of the issues occur when I have used an enhancement process - either the old NR process in Lightroom or a mixup in Photoshop. Not quite sure how these processes decide where to put things, but seems to be a high correlation.

What's the right way to make the adjustments so that everything gets put together properly?

 

[Steve Judges]

Given that I'm trying to offload older images to an external drive, it looks like I can clean up the "duplicated" directories by moving the real Finder folder and then"Find Missing Folder" for both of these directories.

On the external drive, the Root of the disk is Pictures, so I don't have the username capitalization issue.

Looks like the first folder that is relinked moves nicely to the external drive. When I relink the second directory, it reports that it already exists in the catalog and asks if I want to merge the two. Merging seems to work fine and there is only one version of the folder on the external drive, with the total number of images that I would expect.

I am still wondering what change I need to make to get new imports (which show the lower case steve in the path) to land in the Pictures tree (which must have originally been created on a previous Mac that was set up with username Steve).

Or maybe just not worry about it as they will eventually end up on the external drive.

Regardless, you folks have got me over the hump and I'm no longer thinking I have a corrupt catalog. I really appreciate it.

 

[Jim Wilde]

Wow - well spotted Jim. The paths outside of the Pictures tree have "Steve" and those in the Pictures tree have "steve". I had looked at these paths several times and missed it. Show Finder goes to the same place in the Finder hierarchy with both.

As mentioned in one my updates, most of the issues occur when I have used an enhancement process - either the old NR process in Lightroom or a mixup in Photoshop. Not quite sure how these processes decide where to put things, but seems to be a high correlation.

What's the right way to make the adjustments so that everything gets put together properly?

To get the new folders to land under Pictures, you have to fix the existing erroneous Pictures path (i.e. get Pictures listed under "steve"). To do that, follow these instructions:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/ligh...ars-twice-in-folder-list/m-p/10176285#M127696

Just make sure the the temporary folder that you create is NOT inside the existing Pictures folder (e.g. create it on the Desktop or inside Documents).

 

[Steve Judges]

Thank you very much!