Identify photos in folders but NOT in Lr?

[lbeck]

Lightroom Version Number

6.14

Operating System

1. Windows 10

I'm doing some housekeeping and wanting to trim fat from my Lr catalog prior to saving it to a separate, external HDD. My extensive catalog has many files peppered throughout 5-6 folders. Only about half of the total files in my folders are being used by Lr.

Is there a way to easily identify which photos in my folders are not in my Lr library? I'll keep my folders intact on my primary desktop machine but there is no need to keep them part of my Lr archived HDD.

Thanks.

 

[johnbeardy]

No easy way. What you can do is select a folder and use Folder > Synchronize, make sure you display the Import dialog box, and import anything using the Add option.

The previously-uncatalogued will then be shown in Previous Import. You can then remove them from the catalogue if you want, though I would suggest keeping them catalogued. If they're not catalogued, why keep them at all?

 

[PhilBurton]

No easy way. What you can do is select a folder and use Folder > Synchronize, make sure you display the Import dialog box, and import anything using the Add option.

The previously-uncatalogued will then be shown in Previous Import. You can then remove them from the catalogue if you want, though I would suggest keeping them catalogued. If they're not catalogued, why keep them at all?

I agree with John here. However, if you must keep those uncatalogued photos, are they in some RAW format? If yes, then turn on write XMP (and wait quite a while!). Lightroom will write XMP files with catalog info for all the RAW files it the catalog. Now look for RAW files that do not have XMP files, and cull those out.

For JPGs, you can do something similar if you add some nonsense keyword to all JPGs in your catalog (perhaps by folder). Then the files will be rewritten to include the new keyword, since metadata is embedded in the images. After Lightroom has finished that operation, look for all the JPG files with older file dates. Of course, after this whole process is completed, you have to remove that nonsense keyword.

Does this make sense to you?

Phil

 

[lbeck]

Does this make sense to you?

Yes. At least I think that it does. I'm going to try that approach and will post back my experience. But it'll take a few days. I have another Lr task that is within the same project but different enough that I'll post a separate thread.