Moved files and seem to have lost edits from catalog

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keithz829

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Right after the first of the year, I moved my 2012 RAW files from my internal hard drive to an external hard drive using Explorer. I've discovered that my edits for all my edited files are now gone. Did I wipe out my catalog by moving the files outside of Lightroom?

If that is the case, I have to ask if I can recover this from a backup of my catalog taken before moving the files?
 
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All you need to do is tell Lightroom where you moved the files.

In the Folders panel, you'll see that the folders you moved have question marks next to them, indicating that Lightroom doesn't see the folders where it expects. Right-click the top-level missing folder and choose "Find Missing Folder..." from the context menu. Navigate to the new location for that folder, and you're good to go. Repeat as needed for other top-level folders.

(If you have too many top-level folders for this approach to be realistic, let us know and we'll discuss alternatives.)
 
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I hope you didn't reimport them from the new location????
Yes you can recover from the backup by relocating folders as Mark states but I believe the term used maybe Update Folder Location........ I can't check right now but it will one term or the other!!!
 
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Geoff, "Update Folder Location" is only an available option on a folder which ISN'T missing. For missing folders only "Find Missing Folder" is available (plus new with LR4 "Show Parent Folder" if it's not already showing).
 
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I used the Update Folder location to tell Lightroom where the files were moved to right after I moved them, but only the metadata and keywords remain with the files and none of my rating info or edits exist at the new location. I have backups of my catalog from before I moved the files, can I use one of them to recover my ratings and edits?

What would this do to my current catalog?

Fortunately, I've exported all the files I've edited to a new folder on my hard drive, which I also moved and they retained the ratings, metadata, and keywords, but they lost all their edit history too, just like the raw files.
 
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keithz829 said:
I used the Update Folder location to tell Lightroom where the files were moved to right after I moved them, but only the metadata and keywords remain with the files and none of my rating info or edits exist at the new location. I have backups of my catalog from before I moved the files, can I use one of them to recover my ratings and edits?
Click to expand...

Moving the files and then using Update Folder Location shouldn't have worked. Did you copy the files rather than move them? If you moved them rather than copying them, Update Folder Location would not have been available.

Either way, Update Folder Location or Find Missing Folders should not have lost any ratings or edits. I do this routinely, and I know this to be so. I suspect there must be something else you did that caused this.

In any case, if you have a backup of the catalog from before you did anything, try this:
(1) Make a copy of the backup catalog.
(2) Open the new copy (easy way is to just double-click it).

All your edits and ratings and stuff should be there. If not, let us know. I'll proceed on the assumption that they're there.

(3a) If you moved the files rather than copied them, there should be question marks next to the folders in the Folders panel. If so, as I said earlier, right-click the top-level folder in the Folders panel, choose "Find Missing Folder..." from the context menu, navigate to the new location, and you're good to go. Repeat as needed for each top-level folder (or let us know if you have too many of those to realistically do this).

(3b) If you actually copied the files rather than moving them, then everything should be working properly. If you want to point Lightroom to the new copies, right-click the top-level folder in the Folders panel, choose "Update Folder Location..." from the context menu, navigate to the new location, and you're good to go. Repeat as needed for each top-level folder (or let us know if you have too many of those to realistically do this).
 
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I'm having a very similar issue! Completely caused by myself of course ugg. I started moving a file from my main drive to a separate drive (within Lightroom) it froze so I force quit Lightroom, went to move the file directly on my computer to the external hd and I was planning to just update the folder location when it finished transferring) my external HD got accidentally unplugged mid move. I moved everything back into the original file, when I looked in Lightroom non of the edits I did were showing up!! :( I thought maybe the Lightroom had saved the catalog as if the folder was on the external HD from when I'd originally tried to move it, so then I moved the folder within Lightroom successfully over to the external HD but no dice, edits are still gone.
 
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Tell us a bit more teechma? Have you definitely opened the right catalog? Are there photos but no edits, or no photos at all? And which OS and LR version are you using?
 
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I’m using a new macOS Catalina 10.15.1
I have the monthly subscription to Lightroom, I use the classic version 8.3.1 camera Rae 11.3
I only have one catelog, I checked backups folder and the only other one is from last year and only contains one folder in it.
The weird thing is, there’s other edits in other folders that I did after the ones I’ve lost, and those edits are still there, so I don’t think it’s a problem with the catelog, I think possibly Lightroom is recognizing them as being new imports and not linking the edits to the files. I just have no idea how to re-link them...
 
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teechma said:
I’m using a new macOS Catalina 10.15.1
I have the monthly subscription to Lightroom, I use the classic version 8.3.1 camera Rae 11.3
I only have one catelog, I checked backups folder and the only other one is from last year and only contains one folder in it.
The weird thing is, there’s other edits in other folders that I did after the ones I’ve lost, and those edits are still there, so I don’t think it’s a problem with the catelog, I think possibly Lightroom is recognizing them as being new imports and not linking the edits to the files. I just have no idea how to re-link them...
Click to expand...
You cannot relink edits to files, because any file that is shown in Lightroom is by definition linked to the edits. Did you use 'Synchronize Folder' at any time?
 
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teechma said:
I’ve tried syncing so many times. :(
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I didn't ask this because it is a remedy, I asked it because that might actually be the problem. 'Synchronize Folder' is the wrong way of trying to relink images, and can cause edits to get lost. Sometimes Lightroom shows images as 'missing' and finds the same images as 'new'. So the dialog shows the same images. People do not realise what that means, and so they click 'Synchronise'. As a result, the images are first removed from the catalog (which makes you lose the edits because these are removed too) and then imported again as new. Sounds like that may have happened to you too.
 
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teechma said:
That doesn't make sense to me though, im in the correct catalog... ugg I guess re-edit is my only option
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When you did all of this syncing of folders, you destroyed all references (and edits) to the previously imported files that were intros folders. There is no way to get this back except from a catalog backup that existed from a time when those edits were present in the catalog. You said that your only backup was a catalog that was a year old. Do you regularly backup on exit? Could those backup exist but in another location?
 
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I’m not sure, I found one that was recent, and opened it, but it’s weird, even though it’s only like a week old and should be a recent catelog, when I open it, it is only one folder of edits ‍♀️
 
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