Library module Re-locating 4k+ photos.. won't find missing photos close by

[NJHeart2Heart]

Lightroom Version Number

12.4

Operating System

1. macOS 14 Sonoma

Sorry - It seems these days I only visit when I have serious issues with LR Classic. These days I use my phone for photos and only use LR (Version 12.4) for organizing them, but when I have problems, I always come here, as it's always been such a helpful community (when I used it more, I used to contribute more too!)
I seemed to have created a serious issue this morning. I was trying to move photos from my laptop hard drive to an external SSD. I don't know how I did it,
but as of now the photo files themselves (as shown in the file finder) are located in my SSD Drive, BUT the catalog still thinks they are located in my hard drive.
I can see the smart previews in the catalog folder 2023>2023 Q3 JuAuSe but the items have a light gray box, and when I click on it, it says the file is missing. I am able to use locate the file and when I do, LR attaches the preview to the catalog item in my SSD hierarchy. I've done this for 6 photos, but the option to find nearby missing files isn't working.
How do I correct these 4k+ files without having to go through every single photo?

Thanks in advance for any assistance.
Dawn in NJ

 

[Replytoken]

If you kept the same folder and file structure as you moved the photos to the external drive, LRC should be able to relink all of the folders and images. Have you tried to point LRC to a top level folder instead of just a single image?

--Ken

 

[NJHeart2Heart]

If you kept the same folder and file structure as you moved the photos to the external drive, LRC should be able to relink all of the folders and images. Have you tried to point LRC to a top level folder instead of just a single image?

--Ken

Hi Ken. thanks for replying. I had not tried to connect to the folder and now that you. mentioned it I am surprised I didn't think of that (but then it's been a while since I've done much in LR at all). I'll look at that this morning for sure and update what happens. thanks!

 

[NJHeart2Heart]

Hmm.. maybe? First I went back to the hard drive folder that only contains previews and reconnected 1 photo to be sure 1. it still worked and 2. to see if the option to find missing photos might work (it did not). Then I brought up the context menu on that same folder, went to update folder location, navigated to the twin folder, chose it and LR is saying "the selected folder or one of its subfolders is already in LR. Do you want to combine them?" is that what I want to do? I'm a bit healthy now after messing it up yesterday, I want to be sure that correct..

 

[NJHeart2Heart]

That last sentence was supposed to "I'm a bit headshy"...

 

[Replytoken]

I do not recommend combining them. Did you move your photos, or copy them?

When you move photos outside of LRC, it only knows they are not in the location where it thinks they should be. That is why it will tell you the photos are missing. If you copied the photos, then LRC should still see the photos in the original location. But it is not yet clear why LRC flagged some photos as missing, and is not saying that the folder is now in LR. Can you take a screenshot of the folder panel in LRC and post it so we can see it?

--Ken

 

[NJHeart2Heart]

Hi Ken,
Here's the thing. I didn't move them outside of LR. I had tried to move the whole folder, via drag and drop, from the hard drive to my SSD drive within LR. I think something may have interrupted that process (like me closing the lid or something like that). When I went back in, the photo files themselves were now living in my SSD drive, like I wanted, BUT I then had two folders in LR and the preview files are still pointing to the empty folder in the hard drive.

 

[Replytoken]

Hi Ken,
Here's the thing. I didn't move them outside of LR. I had tried to move the whole folder, via drag and drop, from the hard drive to my SSD drive within LR. I think something may have interrupted that process (like me closing the lid or something like that). When I went back in, the photo files themselves were now living in my SSD drive, like I wanted, BUT I then had two folders in LR and the preview files are still pointing to the empty folder in the hard drive.

Does LRC show the path in the former location for these errant folders? And, per chance, are there copies of them also in the new location on the external drive?

--Ken

 

[NJHeart2Heart]

Hi Ken,
I'm not clear on what you're asking. I did create screenshots of the former location - in my hard drive, which is empty, and the new location - in my "T7 Shield" drive., where the photos actually reside.

 

[NJHeart2Heart]

 

[NJHeart2Heart]

The above screenshots show the LRC folder that looks like the photos are there, but they are not.
The first screenshot here, shows when I do "locate" the photo, the option to "find nearby missing photos" is active, but it doesn't find any.
The 2nd screenshot shows the LRC folder that only shows the photos I manually connected. The actual folder in the file finder actually contains all the photos.

 

[NJHeart2Heart]

ugh!!! the time limit on edit makes it hard to correct.
Post #9,

1. 1st screenshot, top rectangle shows the folder that previously contained the photos. Note is still has a photo count of 4871. If you go into file finder, that actual photo has NO photos.
2. 1st screenshot, bottom rectangle shows the folder that now contains all the photos, BUT note, it has a photo count of only 15. Those 15 are the photos I MANUALLY re-connected (which decreased the photo count on top, and increased photo count on bottom - which is expected).

Post #10,

1. 1st screenshot shows the photos with the rectangle indicated it's a preview but NOT connected to the actual photo file. When I clicked on the rectangle, that's the dialog box I mentioned seeing.
2. Disregard the 2nd screenshot, as it doesn't illustrate the info.

Post #11,

1. Shows the folder (T7 Shield drive) the photos that I re-connected.
2. Shows the folder in my hard drive with the dialog box to "locate" the photo open. Note that the option to "check for nearby missing photos" is checked, yet when I click "Select" it does not find any other missing photos.

 

[Conrad Chavez]

The way I would do this is (and forgive me if you already did some of these steps):

First, make sure all of the photos made it to the external SSD by comparing them. This is a manual way:

1. In the Mac Finder, select the top level folder of the original photo location, which looks like “DDG-Working Photos”.
2. Choose File > Get Info, and note what it says for Size. It lists the size in bytes, and number of items.
3. Select the copy of that top level folder that’s on the external SSD (in your case this looks like “Recent Photo Archive 1”), and repeat step 2.
4. If the size and number of items is exactly the same (or close enough, because there might be a slight variation), everything made it over, and you can go on to the next part.

I use a more reliable method to compare: I have software that can look at two folders and show me a list of any differences in the file listings between the two folders. Depending on the situation, I’ll use Carbon Copy Cloner or ChronoSync. Those are actually backup/sync software, so if there are any differences (for example, not everything copied over), I can then tell the app to make the destination folder identical to the source folder, and it will sync the file listing in the two folders.

Once you’ve confirmed that the copy is the same as the original, now you’re ready to tell Lightroom Classic to look in the new place (the external SSD) for the photos in the catalog. The command for this is a bit annoying, because it’s one of the rare commands in Lightroom Classic that you can’t find on the menu bar on a button. It’s only on a context menu, the kind that pops up if you do a secondary click (a right-click if you’re using a mouse).

1. In Lightroom Classic, in the Folders panel, secondary-click the original folder (“DDG-Working Photos”) and choose Update Folder Location. If secondary click isn’t enabled on your Mac, Control-click instead. (If you know secondary click is enabled and you’re using a trackpad instead of a mouse, how it works depends on how it’s set up; for example I set my trackpad options so that I can two-finger click to open a context menu.)
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. In the file dialog box that opens, navigate to the top level folder of the copy on the external SSD (looks like that’s “Recent Photo Archive 1”), select it, and click Choose.

Lightroom Classic should now take some time to reconnect however many thousands of photos are in the subfolders within the folder you chose.

 

[NJHeart2Heart]

Hi Conrad,
First thanks so much for responding. I appreciate any help with this!

As for your instructions:
For context, I was attempting to move a set of files in a subfolder of my parent folder on my mac hard drive, to a T7 SSD Drive.
They both have parent folders for photos, which you did see correctly: Hard Drive - "DDG-Working Photos" and SSD - "Recent Photo Archive 1". However, they have different photos on them, so they would not have the same storage in them.
I did go into the subfolder of each parent folder, both called "2023 Q3 JuAuSe". As suspected, the hard drive folder I was moving files FROM, has just 6KB on it. The SSD folder which I was moving files TO has 17.59GB. But the FROM folder is the one that LR thinks the photos should be in.

I've used both CCC and Chronosync in the past for backups, but haven't used it in a while. I am now backing up both hard drive and SSD through Backblaze. I'm not sure if going into Backblaze might help, but honestly I haven't looked in those backups since I started using Backblaze and don't know if the backups are versioned or not (Yeah... should probably know that!).

I do know secondary click, and I use context menus all the time I CAN reconnect the previews with the actual photos BUT only one at a time, and I have about 1300 photos in the folder. However, when I navigated to through the "update folder" dialog and pointed to my SSD which contains the photos, I get this. Another forum contributor warned me not to do this.

 

[Conrad Chavez]

If the replies are slow…this looks a little more complicated than expected, so taking the time to think through it a little…

 

[NJHeart2Heart]

Conrad,
I appreciate that! I'll keep an eye out. Otherwise things in LR are stable, and I did clear space on my hard drive (since the files ARE in the SSD). If I need one of those photos I'll just manually reconnect it/them. I'm just hoping I don't have to do it to all of 'em ;D

 

[NJHeart2Heart]

I've been thinking more about my file problems. I'm not worried about losing the sidecar/previews. I haven't done much editing at all in the last few years, and this was just last year. That being said,
What if I re-imported the photos in place? Would that force LR to create new Previews where they're supposed to be? Then simply delete the previews showing in the old folder?

 

[NJHeart2Heart]

I fixed it. Since the catalog sidecars and previews were not that important since I hadn't done any editing, I just removed the "photos" (previews) from LR and re-imported the actual photos. LR created new previews and all is well.

Dawn in NJ