Missing Photo-"do you want to combine these folders?"

[Johngiat]

Lightroom Version Number

15.3

Operating System

1. Windows 11

I have a missing folder (grey with question mark). When I right click on the folder and select Find Missing Folder, I then navigate to the folder in Windows Explorer,
I then get the following message: "The selected folder or one of its subfolders is already in Lightroom. Do you want to combine these folders?" There are two choices in this dialog box: MERGE or CANCEL.
I do not understand what this means so I'm hesitant to click on the MERGE button in this dialog box.
Should I click on MERGE?

 

[clee01l]

There are several reasons thet you find yourself in this situation. One is that Windows Might have changed drive letters between one import session and the other IOW what was originally Drive G:\. was changed to Drive D: by windows. When that happened as an example, Drive G: is no longer in the file system but Lightroom's path still point to G:\. e.g . "Myfolder" is a folder now listed twice in the Folder panel Or only once as G:\ but Drive D:\ contains the folder "Myfolder".
Another possibility is the "Capitalization" problem where you imported in to "MYFOLDER" and Later imported into "myfolder".

A screen shot showing all of the folders and volumes (Drives) in the Folder panel in Lightroom can help us here.

I don't think Merge is going to hurt but it might make more of a problem later.

For now do these two things:

1. A screen shot showing all of the folders and volumes (Drives) in the Folder panel in Lightroom
2. In the Library Menu run the menu item {Library}{Find All Missing Photographs}. to produce a special collection in the Catalog panel and report its results.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

Usually the cause is that after the folder got missing, possibly because you had not yet noticed that, you imported some images and selected the current location of the missing folder. Lightroom added that ‘new’ folder to the folder panel during the import, so now the missing folder and a ‘new’ folder in its current location are both in Lightroom. When you use ‘Find Missing Folder’, you’ll select that ‘new’ folder and so you will get this dialog. Merging solves it.