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Problem with moving files inside Lightroom

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silkenpaw

New Member
Premium Classic Member
Joined
Jul 2, 2019
Messages
22
Lightroom Experience
Intermediate
Lightroom Version
Classic
Lightroom Version Number
LR Classic v 10.2
Operating System
  1. macOS 11 Big Sur
Hi all,
I've been cleaning up my folder structure by moving photos and folders from within LR, as recommended. It was going without any problems until Lightroom decided that it cannot move one folder. I am using a date folder structure. Folders from before and after are being moved without a snag. I had LR find both the old (still full) folder and the new (empty) one on the hard drive and they look as they should, but Lightroom gives me a message that "an unknown error occurred" when I try to move the files. I have already optimized the catalog, shut down and restarted LR, shut down and restarted the computer, with no results. What should my next step be?

Thank you for any suggestions,

Magda
 
So, to clarify: you have an old folder (let's call it '2021') and a new empty one (let's call it '2021 New') and you're trying to select all the ones in '2021' and drag them to '2021 New'? Is that the situation?

If so, can you try dragging just one photo from '2021' into '2021 New'? That will help establish if there's a rogue photo (probably permissions) in '2021' that's stopping things.
 
This may not relate directly to your issue, but is useful to know and may have some relevance to the exercise you are doing.

If you wish to copy images from folder x to folder y.... there are 2 common scenarios.
a. Folder x exists with images. You create folder y from within Lr and then you can drag images from x to y.
b. Folder y exists already, but Lightroom does not know folder y exists, so it is difficult to drag from x to y (while inside Lr).
Workaround. Outside Lr copy a test image to folder y. Then inside Lr...import the test image. Folder Y will now be recognised inside Lr and you can drag from x to y.
 
So, to clarify: you have an old folder (let's call it '2021') and a new empty one (let's call it '2021 New') and you're trying to select all the ones in '2021' and drag them to '2021 New'? Is that the situation?

If so, can you try dragging just one photo from '2021' into '2021 New'? That will help establish if there's a rogue photo (probably permissions) in '2021' that's stopping things.
Correct. It doesn't work one by one, either.
 
Today I was working to make my folder structure more consistent across several years. I am on Windows 10 and most current version of LR Classic. From within Lightroom Classic, I was able to make new folders and drag existing folders into the new ones (within the folder panel), but only for a while. Then the folders just refused to move and no error message appeared. At first, the issue seemed to be mostly with trying to move floders that had subfolders, but later it became clear that was not a consistent factor. After closing and re-opening Lightroom, the same thing happened: ok to move multiple folders and then the folders would not move until closing and reopening Lightroom. I was intentionally pausing after moving each folder to make sure no progress bars remained to complete. Does not appear to be expected performance, but closing and reopening the program seemed to be a repeatable work-around.
 
I was able to make new folders and drag existing folders into the new ones
This has me questioning- Why do you make new folders before 'moving'?
You only need to 'drag' the existing folder in the folder panel for it to move to a new location with the photos it contains.
 
I have had good success with photo folders organized by year, with subfolders for each month that then contain separate folders for shoots during the month. In some earlier years, I had grouped by year, then quarter, then shoot. For consistency, I was making new monthly folders for some of the older years. The monthly folders are the new destination for shoots. Dragging from the quarterly folder to the new monthly folder worked (as suggested by I-See-Light), but the new monthly folder had to exist first. Unfortunately, after dragging four or five shoot folders, dragging suddenly would have no effect (the shoot folder would not move and no error message appeared). Dragging worked again after restarting LR Classic.
 
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