Move to Date Hierarchy?

[toomasp]

Hi All,

Quick question regarding directory structures in LR.

Way back when I first started using Lightroom I implemented my own directory structure. As time has gone on and my catalog has grown, maintaining this directory structure is becoming a little tedious, and I've now seen the error of my ways (I should have imported and organized by date, and made much better use of collections/keywords).

Is there a way I can re-organize my current catalog into a date managed hierarchy?

If possible, what would the risks be? Should I just leave as is and from here on in begin to use a date hierarchy?

Many Thanks,
Tom.

 

[Mark Sirota]

Welcome to Lightroom Forums!

There isn't a straightforward way to do this today. Ideally you'd be able to Organize by Date in the Export as Catalog or Import from Catalog process, just as you can for a regular import. That would make this really, really easy -- if you like that idea, please submit a feature request for it using the link in the blue bar at the top.

Until that becomes possible in a future release of Lightroom, you can either do it by hand by creating folders and dragging your photos into them, or you can create a new catalog and re-import the files.

If you do the latter, you'd first write out all the XMP data (if you haven't already) so that it could be read into the new catalog. However, XMP data doesn't include everything -- here's a post by Brad detailing what you'd lose.

I think those are the only three options -- move by hand, re-import, or wait.

 

[toomasp]

Mark,

Quick reply! I'll submit the feature request.

I think I'll probably wait for a possible future update, and in the meantime begin using the date hierarchy for all my new imports.

I'll have a read of the info you've supplied,
Many Thanks,
Tom.

 

[Gene McCullagh]

Welcome!

That's sounds like the best route for now Tom. Leave your current structure in place and begin the new one. Then when LR supports that feature you can clean up the old structure.

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