lost files

[giulia_mariab51955086]

a few years ago after a crash of my computer, I lost all the photo files I had downloaded on Lightroom. the catalogues could be retrieved with a backup I was doing regularly on my c, but the files were apparently only temporarily downloaded, so the catalogue was only showing thumbs and all the pictures GONE. it was ages ago, but I still wonder if there is anything I could do to extract my pictures from the hard disk of that computer, which I kept. or if my files are hiding somewhere in my backups. I could only find deleted temporary downloads. I had no idea that choosing the option of downloading directly from my camera to Lightroom, would mean losing all the pictures I did not export form there to my hard disk. anyone out there could help? obviously today I am wiser and download the pictures on an external disk and then import them in Lightroom to edit and export all the edited files on a the disk. I wish I would have known then. any help welcome.

[JohanElzenga]

There is no such thing as 'temporary downloads'. The real problem is that you don't know how Lightroom works. Lightroom is a database, like an address book. It keeps a record of all the images and their metadata and edits, but the images aren't physically inside the catalog. They are stored somewhere else on your hard disk. Just like your friends don't live inside your address book.

So you were looking in the wrong place all along. Your images are probably in some folder in the Pictures folder. That is the default and you probably never changed that.

[giulia_mariab51955086]

Hello

there was an option that offered a direct download on the lightroom photo Library from your camera. this was in 2011. All the pictures previously downloaded directly to my computer were in the picture files, but since i did those direct downloads to lightroom, no picture folders were updated and the photos were only reachable through the lightroom catalogue, but seemingly nowhere in my computer. Or at least it appears to be so. And yes! There was such thing as temporary downloads, because all the pictures appear in my backups as such, but none are physically there. Or perhaps they are and i have no idea how to extract them, which was my question. They are all called temporary downloads and can’t be opened as they have been deleted after my pc crash of 2012. as you appear to understand how these things work better than me, i would be thankful if you could help in guiding me in extracting those hidden picture files, not visible in the backups, and only visible as lightroom Thumbs. Is there any chance that someone can still extract them from my obsolete pc hard disk? Thank you

[JohanElzenga]

I'm sorry, but you remember that wrong. Also in 2011 Lightroom did not have an option to store images inside the catalog and there never was a situation where a photo could be 'in' Lightroom but not on your hard disk. Never, period. A photo is 'in' Lightroom in the same way that your friends are 'in' your address book. Their data are in that book, they physically live somewhere else.

[giulia_mariab51955086]

This doesn’t replies my question. I did import the pictures directly on lightroom for certain, and it is obvious by now that they were not stored there, but in another place in my pc, which was not my picture libraries. They were never there before, and not when i recovered that folder. My question is where could they be and why they dont appear in any of my backups. Instead i had plenty of deleted temporary downloads. I suspect that lightroom imported the files temporarily and might have been in my downloads folder, could this be the case? and if this was the case, does anyone know whether downloads folders might be retrieved from an old crashed pc? or would be deleted by now, as they were deleted in my backups? thanks!

[dj_paige]

Use your operating system's search feature to search all hard disks for one of the files, by file name.

[giulia_mariab51955086]

thanks! I will need to hand this to a specialist as said hard disk crashed and I can't restart that pc. before investing, I wanted to make sure it makes sense to even try. you think temporary files might still be stored in an old PC? in my experience, as opposed to apple, pcs only stored downloads as temporary files, which would explain the loss. or at least it was the case with the ones I owned in the past. is it plausible that Lightroom uploaded to the downloads folder the files it imported directly from the camera? because if this is not the case, my files should definitely still be somewhere to be extracted.

[dj_paige]

You are using the word "temporary files", which does not correspond to the way Lightroom works. All of your photos that were imported into Lightroom must be stored somewhere on the hard disk, not as "temporary files", but as actual permanent files. (Well, they are permanent until you specifically delete them yourself; or you tell Lightroom to delete them; or the disk crashes). So they should be somewhere, unless you deleted them, or the crash prevents them from being found.

is it plausible that Lightroom uploaded to the downloads folder the files it imported directly from the camera?

This is very difficult to understand. Uploads and downloads and imports?

While there may be a specific downloads folder, you may have also set Lightroom to use the non-default folder for your imports, and that can be anywhere, which is why you have to search ALL of your hard disks.

[giulia_mariab51955086]

this is what I was asking. if you reckon that Lightroom would never download temporary files, they might be there somewhere. in which case is worth looking into it professionally. as all my backups from prior the crash show no sign of them, but many temps instead, I was worrying they might be irreparably lost. thank you

[JohanElzenga]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/giulia+mariab51955086  wrote

This doesn’t replies my question. I did import the pictures directly on lightroom for certain, and it is obvious by now that they were not stored there, but in another place in my pc, which was not my picture libraries. They were never there before, and not when i recovered that folder. My question is where could they be and why they dont appear in any of my backups. Instead i had plenty of deleted temporary downloads. I suspect that lightroom imported the files temporarily and might have been in my downloads folder, could this be the case? and if this was the case, does anyone know whether downloads folders might be retrieved from an old crashed pc? or would be deleted by now, as they were deleted in my backups? thanks!

Obviously I can't tell you where you downloaded your pictures and why you can't find them in your backups. You'll have to figure that out yourself.

I assume you found some "Temporary Import Data.db" files in your backup, but those are not images. Those files are temporary database files, that are normally deleted when Lightroom quits but could end up in a backup in the meantime. They are like temporary pages of your address book, not temporary images or something like that.

[giulia_mariab51955086]

Thank you for explaining the presence of so many temps in my backups. Still unclear where the files went. i will -as you so nicely put it- figure it out for myself.