Depending on your Import dialog settings, the folders may be in one long list regardless of their hierarchy on the hard drive. That can make them hard to find and relocate if they’re ever marked as missing.
As a preventative measure, you can configure Lightroom to show a few top level folders, with subfolders below. If Lightroom ever loses track of your photos, perhaps as a result of a hard drive failure or the drive letter changing, you’ll only need to relink the top level folders and that will cascade through the rest. It also makes it easier to visualize where the photos are stored on your hard drive.
So how do we go from this slightly nondescript tangle of folders on the left… to the tidy hierarchy on the right…?
Right-click on the current top level folder and select Show Parent Folder. This doesn’t import new photos—it just adds an additional hierarchy level to your Folders panel, and does a lot more behind the scenes. Keep repeating that process on each top level folder until it shows your chosen parent folder.
The top level folders are those without a parent folder, so in this screenshot, they are ‘Lightroom Photos’ and ‘Sample Files’ and all of the others are subfolders.
If you go too far and want to remove a top level folder, right-click on that folder and choose Hide This Parent. It does the opposite of Show Parent Folder, and will ask for confirmation before removing that top level folder from your Folders panel, as there may be photos directly in that folder that would be removed from the catalog.
If the Show Parent Folder and Hide This Parent (formerly called Add Parent Folder and Promote Subfolders) options don’t appear in the menu, you’re right-clicking on the wrong folder. You have to right-click on the top level folder, rather than a subfolder or Volume Bar, for those options to appear. In the screenshot, you would need to right-click on the folder ‘Lightroom Photos’ instead of ‘2009,’ and ‘Sample Files’ instead of ‘Blanks.’
i have a problem when i try to update my Lr Classic
1st of all i got another job as usual i import my folder for new photo
then i sync to the cloud, after few days it went missing and i try to reconnect the photo. Then it stuck at 700pcs photo to be sync and take a long time. i did ask techician from adobe remove all missing photo and reconnect the missing photo. rebuild sync file as well
i do want to as is the sync folder on lighroom classic which under preferrence is important and how to make it smooth when sync?
Where are the photos stored on the hard drive Juanwan? And can Lightroom find them now? They won’t be able to sync to the cloud if the originals are missing.
OMG! You are so wonderful!
I’ll let you know how it goes after I get my new mac ; )
Linda
Hello Victoria,
I have a question.
I am currently using a MacBook Pro 2012 & in a couple of week I should receive my new mac.
I have Lightroom 5 but also Lightroom CC & Classic along with Photoshop.
I have ton’s of photos on Lightroom 5 & my organization was not good when I was using Lightroom 5.
I’m wondering if I will be able to transfer my old Lightroom 5 to the new mac? I really don’t want to loose photos & the editing done on them.
Any suggestions will be wonderful.
Thank you so much in advance!
Linda
Lightroom Classic on the new machine will be able to upgrade and open your LR5 catalog, so you wouldn’t lose anything. Here’s how to move safely: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/how-move-lightroom-to-new-computer/
These quick tips have resolved what was a frustrating NAS drive migration. I assumed the new NAS drive where my library sits could be renamed the same as the old and mapped to the same drive letter. Western Digital have made it hat impossible. Updating three parent folders to point at new drive and drive mapping saved 45,000 catalogue files. Latest library settings all in place. 5min job after hours of tech research on NAS drive device naming. Thanks.
Glad we could help!
THIS WAS SO AMAZING!! Thank you so much for this Victoria! Do you have a Patreon?
We’re pleased you like it. We have a Paypal donate, although most of our work is supported by Victoria’s books available on the site.
Hi Victoria,
The images show your folders on a Raid Drive – is this a NAS drive? I thought it was taboo to store the images on a NAS drive when using LR?
Can you confirm please?
The RAID drive is a Western Digital 8TB (2x 4TB drive), which is then backed up to a NAS. You can store photos on a NAS (just not the catalog) but it’s slow.
Hi Victoria
i still don’t quite understand the whole thing, very confused, can i just copy and replace the whole Lightroom folder (*.lrcat, *.lrcat-lock, *.lrcat-wal, etc.) after i installed Lightroom app in new computer and open the catalog file? i am changing macbook, still macOS, and all my photos are in external drive
hope you can help me…
For mac, essentially yes, because the macOS uses drive names so the photos shouldn’t get marked as missing. Just make sure you quit Lightroom first.
ALL of my pictures are in Catalog – under All Photographs- obviously I didn’t and still don’t know what I am doing. I bought a new laptop and want to move LR to it.
Now what do I do??
These are the instructions you need Dana https://www.lightroomqueen.com/how-move-lightroom-to-new-computer/ Underneath the Catalog panel should be a Folders panel. That’s where you need to look for your folders. If it’s not showing, go to Window menu > Panels and reselect it.
Ive just set up my Mac and I previously had a windows pc. Ive saved my photos, LR Cat and previews to a hard drive. When I open up the LR Cat all my Albums have the “!” logo. How to I resync my albums as its not giving me the option!!!!! Is it something to do with how I saved on PC to how I’m looking at in on a Mac. I have no idea and I’m rubbish with computers
Hi Richard
The naming of devices (so drives) on Mac is different to Windows, so Lightroom won’t be seeing the drive / files as the path just won’t be the same on the Mac, so you’ll be seeing the whole drive as offline (see the examples below)
Check the following post to assist:
https://www.lightroomqueen.com/lightroom-photos-missing-fix/
Don’t change individual files, the top level folder needs to be corrected
Paul
Working in LR6 and now when I go to import pictures it takes me all the way back to my HD folder and I have to dig into user / user name / parent folder / working pictures folder
I have tried “docking” that fold but with each new start of LR it takes me all the way back to my HD folder. Seem to remember in LR5 once I designated working pictures folder as a place to pull import files it kept it there.
Am I doing something wrong or is there a way to keep my import folder hierarchy in place each time?
Hi Paul, have you tried clicking on the big button in the top left corner to see all of your recent sources? That might save you some time. Other than that, resetting preferences might help.
I am trying connect my Collections (of which there are many) to a new hard drive where all my images were transferred recently. For some reason, the Collections did not transfer. The catalog is connected and working well EXCEPT the files in all the Collections are giving me a file cannot be found prompt, and I know the file is in a designated folder, under a year and date and it is there! Since Collections include many files from many different folders, I really want to find a way to reconnect it all. Any ideas? I am out of them!
How did you go about moving them to the new drive? It sounds like you possibly removed and reimported the photos or synchronized a folder (which, as you’ve figured, are bad ideas). Do you have a backup of the catalog from before you moved, while the photos are still in the right place? If so, you may want to restore the backup and then move them the “right” way: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/articles-page/move-photos-another-hard-drive-leaving-catalog/
If you’ve done much work since that backup, you might also need to merge those edits into the backup catalog. There’s a series running on the blog at the moment about merging catalogs, but you may want to post on the forum so we can walk you through that in more detail.
Hi V –
I loved this how-to for simplifying folders, but when I tried to implement it, there is no ‘show parent folder’ choice when right -clicking. I’m using LR CC, is there something different here?
Nope, should be the same for CC. No Show Parent Folder option either means you’re right-clicking on a folder that already has a parent folder showing, or there is no parent folder to show.
Hi VIctora,
not sure what I am missing, but I don’t have the options of show parent – hide parent when I right click on a folder in Lightroom. I went up and down the folder tree – right up to the root, but those options didn’t appear. I’m running the latest versions of lightroom CC, OS X
Let’s have a look at a screenshot Peter. I don’t think you can post it in the blog comments, but post it on the forum and we’ll see if we can spot the problem.
Hi Victoria,
I recently added a second external hard drive to store my photos. In Finder I can see all my photos are there in the correct folders and subfolders on both drives but LR folder panel does not show the complete folder structure for both drives. Only part is shown in each drive (but not duplicated). e.g. 2014 and part of 2015 is shown on one drive and the balance of 2015 and 2016 is shown on the other. Even when I cntrl click to show parent folder it sill doesn’t open up the entire folder structure in each drive in the folder panel.
To access all my photos I am having to attach both drives.
So the same photos are on both drives (e.g. as a cloned backup drive) but Lightroom is seeing some photos on one drive and some on the other? Or there are different photos on each drive?
Hello Victoria —
I’m a newbie who’s moving my Aperture (managed) files to an external drive that will become Lightroom CC’s filing cabinet. The first group of about 16K transfers relocated as planned, and my Lr catalog is working just fine. No problems locating the images in their new locations. However, I have a problem is with my folder organization. Fixing it would be a snap in Finder, but I know better. So I need your help.
My folder organization is based upon year of shoot. I rely on keywords as you, too, appear to prefer — it’s served me well for a decade. In the group I’ve moved, I have 24 folders each holding a year’s images for one photographer. As I set up to relocate the next individual’s work, I realized I’d neglected to top the relocated group of folders with a parent folder to identify the photographer responsible. So, my problem is how to accomplish the “insert” of a parent folder at the top of the list of folders that have received the relocated images.
The “show parent” command worked fine and revealed a parent named “Image Files” which, so far as I can tell via Finder doesn’t exist as a folder but is the name of the external drive being used. OK, that’s descriptive, and I’ll buy it. However, since I want to have about a dozen photographer names as the next level of folders (each to have a string of date folders arrayed below them), I sense it’s time to ask for help!
I’ve tried adding a folder at the first level below “Image Files” which, of course, is at the same level as any of the yearly shoot files for the one photographer I have loaded. Figuring I could move each year folder into this new folder and make it a parent by adoption, I tried to move one year. The new, empty folder was greyed out (because it was new and thus empty?) and it wouldn’t accept any of the year folders.
As noted, this would be a snap to accomplish in Finder, but chaos would ensue.
Hard to describe all this, and I hope you might be able to straighten me out. If I’ve done anything right so far, it’s probably to realize I had an organizational problem fairly early and also to listen to all who say “do everything inside Lr and leave the Finder out of it.”
Thanks!
Hmmm, not sure why it won’t let you move them in the Folders panel, but you can do so in Finder as long as you relink the folders. See option 1 here: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/articles-page/move-photos-another-hard-drive-leaving-catalog/ Once you’ve moved them in Finder, you might even be able to right-click on the Image Files “folder”, choose Update Folder Location and point it to your new parent folder.
Thanks for your reply, Victoria. After reading your response, I decided the reason I couldn’t drag folders into the newly created parent subfolder was because the latter had no image files in it. Sort of “if Lr doesn’t see any images, it’s not deemed a real folder.”
So, gritting my teeth and working within Finder, I moved a single image file into the new parent folder (the photographer). “Boom”! Lr then accepted nesting the shoot date folders into the appropriate “photographer” parent. Problem free from that point on.
Interestingly (at least to me) was that when the newly subordinated folders had been moved in Finder, Aperture’s referenced file system picked up the new location and reflected it without further effort. Lr, by contrast, needed to have my input to help it find the new location in the new structure. I think I prefer the Lr protocol since the feedback ensures Lr and I are on the same page.
Great job Terry!
Hi Victoria! Thanks so much! This is extremely helpful.
You mention not to import the files again into Lightroom or else you’ll lose the edits that you’ve completed. If you copy the folder to an external HD, update the folder location in Lightroom, disconnect the external HD that the files were copied to and then plug the external HD in again at a later time, will the photos sync to Lightroom without having to re-import them? I just wanted to verify since I’m copying over a significant number of photos.
Thanks!
Hi Kristen. Yes, as long as you use Update Folder Location (or Find Missing Folder when they go missing), you’ll be fine.
Victoria, Thank you for your help! You say to transfer the catalog, photos, etc. in the same locations as they were on the old computer. I have done that. However, the user name has changed so the path name to the library is different. Instead of C:\users\Elaine\Pictures\Lightroom it is now C:\users\Lainey\Pictures\Lightroom – is that going to cause a problem? I am using Lightroom Creative Cloud and installed the desktop app. Now, do I just have to point it to the new path? Lightroom is telling me to “click the import button to begin.” I didn’t have the luxury of double checking my backups since my hard drive crashed but I did have everything backed up to an external drive. Using Windows 10 now. Thanks for your help!
The slight change on path will be fine – you might just need to relink any missing photos, but that’s not the end of the world. Don’t go reimporting – just go to File > Open and navigate to your catalog.
Thank you – but I have another question. When I look in my LR folder, there are about 80 Catalogs in there – all with dates. On the old computer, I did have LR4 installed and then upgraded to LR CC. So maybe i’m confused because the names seem different. When I just downloaded LR from Creative Cloud, it created three new file names with yesterday’s date. They are: Lightroom Catalog, Lightroom Catalog.Ircat.lock, and Lightroom Catalog.Ircat.journal. I understand I won’t be using those new files because I will be opening my old one. The latest date ones I have (this is the last time I used LR before crash) are:
Lightroom Catalog.Ircat (2016_01_30_01_43_17 UTC.lock (modified 1/29/2016 4:32PM) (what does UTC mean?) I think this is the file that is my catalog database that I should open?
then there are these that are not .Ircat:
Lightroom Catalog (2016_01_30 02_45_32UTC) (459MB modified 1/29/2016 6:44PM
Lightroom Catalog (2016_01_30 02_45_32 UTC.Ircat-journal (1.74MB modified 1/29/2016 6:44AM)
Lightroom Catalog (2016_01_30 04_46_25 UTC) (458MB modified 1/29/2016 7:53PM)
Can I delete all those other old catalog files once I get this straight and am using the correct catalog?
I hope this makes sense to you. I really want to get back to learning photography and using LR and have put this off for three months because I just don’t understand it. Thank you immensely for your help!
UTC is Coordinated Universal Time (like GMT).
The lrcat.lock file means Lightroom was probably open, although it should be automatically removed when LR quits, so if it’s still there when LR’s closed, you can delete it.
lrcat.journal is data that hasn’t yet been written back to the catalog. Never delete that unless you’re deleting the main catalog file next to it (like the empty one created yesterday).
If the catalogs are in dated folders, they’re probably backups. Just keep them for now.
You’re right, the files it created yesterday can be deleted. And then yes, you want to copy the catalog from the old computer and open it, as shown in the Moving to a New Computer post.
I’m wondering why you organize your folders by date.
Because folders are just a way of storing photos Jim. I use keywords and collections to find and organise the photos. You can read a bit more about the pros and cons here: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/articles-page/organize-photos-hard-drive/
Thank you! I moved from PC to Mac and it was giving me these long winded full path names – which meant I couldn’t see the actual folder name, just the root folder’s rather long name.
Well done Ruth! And when you saying it’s showing the whole path instead of the folder name, try clicking on the + button on the Folders panel, and you can choose how the folder names are displayed, which might help further.
Ahhhh!!! Thank you!! I didn’t know about the ‘show parent folder’. After getting a new computer and switching from Mac to PC I was foreseeing staying up until some ungodly hour ‘finding’ all of my RAW folders. Now I get to go to bed earlier!! Thanks again! 🙂