• Welcome to the Lightroom Queen Forums! We're a friendly bunch, so please feel free to register and join in the conversation. If you're not familiar with forums, you'll find step by step instructions on how to post your first thread under Help at the bottom of the page. You're also welcome to download our free Lightroom Quick Start eBooks and explore our other FAQ resources.
  • Stop struggling with Lightroom! There's no need to spend hours hunting for the answers to your Lightroom Classic questions. All the information you need is in Adobe Lightroom Classic - The Missing FAQ!

    To help you get started, there's a series of easy tutorials to guide you through a simple workflow. As you grow in confidence, the book switches to a conversational FAQ format, so you can quickly find answers to advanced questions. And better still, the eBooks are updated for every release, so it's always up to date.

Import Moved photos from organized folders and want to go back!

Status
Not open for further replies.
C

csherman228

New Member
Joined
Apr 2, 2018
Messages
2
Lightroom Experience
Beginner
Lightroom Version
Cloud Service
Lightroom Version Number
Lightroom Classic CC
Operating System
  1. macOS 10.13 High Sierra
Here's the question:

If I delete a previous import that I had done as a "move" import, will those photos go BACK to the folders they were in on my external hard drive? That's what I NEED them to do.

Here's the story:

I should have hit "add to catalog." Instead, I did "move." Now I have 49,000 photos in one folder on my external hard drive that originally had hundreds of organized folders. I wanted to import those organized folders into LR so I could work with them and organize within LR and not run into a mess, but I created a mess. So if I delete the previous import from LR, what happens to those photos that are right now in one massive folder? And painfully, no, I do not have a backup of those organized folders, but yes, I do have all my photographs.
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
No, removing photos from the catalog does just that: remove them from the catalog.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
As Johan said, deleting the entries from Lightroom will not cause the image files to move. You will need to manually move the files back into the folders they were in.

Alternatively just leave them where they are and use Collections and Keywords to filter/view them. Collections are basically just virtual folders that can contain any images you want. So if you click on a Collection all you will see are the images in that collection.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Do you have a system backup taken when the images were in their original folders? If so, restore them, delete the current ones from LR (not from disk, yet) and re-import, properly this time. After everything looks good, delete the files on disk that got moved to the wrong folder.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Whoops! ;(
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Okay, thank you, all! Sad, but I suppose I learned my lesson, and I'm just glad I still have all the photos. Now for hours and hours of cleanup.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
JohanElzenga said:
Hal,
That would obviously have been my advice too, but...
Click to expand...
During the import process, there is an option to create a second copy of all the imported mages. Yes, it doubles the space you need for newly imported files, but it is a great backup. I delete all my second copy folders a few months after doing import or else when I have done LIBRARY and DEVELOP work on the images.

Of course, I have an automated backup application that includes all newly added photos to my E:\Media partition.

Phil Burton
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I just import my raw files into a folder structure reflecting the capture date.

Then I use keywording and collections to organise them within light room.

(note the eight photos I took before I set the date on my new camera , and some photos that think they were taken in 1945! :D )

Capture.JPG
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top