Lightroom missing folders?

[elgar22]

I have a folder on my external drive called "General Photography" which is organized into folders by year.
it has folders 2010-2015 on it, but in my Lightroom Library left column, it only sees a few of those folders.
If i go to import one of the missing folders, it shows all the photos grayed out (because I have already imported them in the past).
Additionally, in the right side column, Lightroom totally sees all the nested folders!
I can't figure out why they are hidden in the left column Library mode....


Left side Library column compared to Folder structure in Finder

Right side column in Import dialogue

Did you ever resolve this problem?

 

[clee01l]

To both of you, welcome to the forum. It is always better to start your own new post. Posts to a two year old topic can often get overlooked.
The solution is first prevention. Don't move images that have been cataloged in LR using Windows Explorer to move the file. The only way LR has of keeping track of the cataloged images is the path recorded in the Database that is the catalog file. When it does not agree with the filesystem LR thinks the folder is missing.

If you moved the folder using Explorer, then it is missing in LR because the new path does not match the path records in the catalog. You need to relink these by right clicking on the missing folder in the LR folder panel and choosing "Find Missing Folder" to tell LR where you moved the folder.

 

[elgar22]

Thank you for responding, I was in two minds about picking up this thread as so often people tell you "there's already a thread on this question." Anyway thanks for your time. I have tried "Find Missing Folder" and Synchronising which used to work if I moved something outside of LR. No luck. I feel like I'm going around in circles, are there any other methods to reconcile the catalog? Is it OK to continue here or should I still start a new thread?

 

[Johan Elzenga]

It's OK to continue here. First of all, do not use 'Synchronise Folder' to try a reconnect a missing folder. That is not what this option is for, so it will always fail.

You have to use the 'Find Missing Folder' menu, and quite frankly I don't understand what 'not luck' means here. Find Missing Folder is not some automatic feature, if that is what you think. You yourself have to know where you moved that folder, so you can tell Lightroom where it is using this menu. If you don't know the new location of the folder(s), all bets are off.

 

[clee01l]

Thank you for responding, I was in two minds about picking up this thread as so often people tell you "there's already a thread on this question." Anyway thanks for your time. I have tried "Find Missing Folder" and Synchronising which used to work if I moved something outside of LR. No luck. I feel like I'm going around in circles, are there any other methods to reconcile the catalog? Is it OK to continue here or should I still start a new thread?

If you find a old thread on your issue AND is does not solve your problem, then you should start a new thread.

If you have (?) on the folder panel indicating the folder is missing, then "Find Missing Folder" is the only way to inform LR of the new location. But there needs to be a new location.

There are three possibilities that need to be considered:

1. You moved the folder using Explorer and it exists intact in the new location. "Find Missing Folder" will let you show LR where the folder is now located.
2. You deleted the folder and it's contents. LR can not be resolved with "Find Missing Folder" since there is no missing folder to find.
3. Your folders were on an EHD and you use Windows which assigns Drive letters. What used to be called Drive E: when the images were imported is now called by Windows Drive G: "Find Missing Folder" will still work, only this time you need to point LR to a different drive letter. There are some thing that you can do to prevent Windows from assigning different drive letters at start up so that this does not happen again.

In Summary, "Find Missing Folder" is the function in LR to relink your missing folders and files. But this is predicated on you knowing where your images have wandered off to.

Using the Sync Folders option is not the solution since you do not want to reimport for any reason. Reimporting will only add a second instance of your image files and the first instance that contains all of your keywording effort and development effort will still be marked as Missing.

 

[elgar22]

Thanks for your replies, I clearly misunderstood the purpose of Synchronise. I am slowly relinking missing files using the Find Missing Folder option.