Completely messed up folder restructure by using Update Folder Location

[stephanieb88038528]

Oh dear what a mess!  I keep my photo's on my hard drive in a very orderly fashion but had added some new folders and deleted some others whilst trying to free up some space - probably should have done it through Lightroom but hindsight is a wonderful thing!

I have 3 main folders in a larger folder called Photo's.  The third folder is called Foreign Travel and within that a folder for each trip I've taken - about 45000 photos.

For some reason it wouldn't let me sinc the folders - the button was greyed out so I went into each folder using Update folder location.

What this did is create a new folder as a sub folder - each containing 48000 photos

Now if I try to delete each one of these sub folders with 48000 photo's will I have to import them all again?  Any help will be very much appreciated.

[JohanElzenga]

No, don’t try to reimport anything and don’t use Synchronize Folder! What you need to do is first get an overview of the real folder structure on the disk. Compare that to what Lightroom makes of it. Then starting at the top, use ‘Update Folder Location’ or ‘Find Missing Folder’ (the menu depends on whether Lightroom sees the folder as missing) to reconnect Lightroom to the real location of the folder(s). If you need help, then make screenshots of the entire folder panel and of the disk. This one screenshot shows the kind of problem, but we can’t suggest the solution because we don’t know how it should look.

[stephanieb88038528]

Thank you so much JohanEl54 - I really appreciate your time

I've just taken a screenshot of the folder list on my hard drive.  I will go through the process as you have suggested. 

How do I get rid of the new folders that I created in the screenshot?  It appears that all photographs appear in each sub folder.  If I delete them what will be the repurcussions?

Best wishes

S

[JohanElzenga]

Like I said: without seeing the disk structure I can't comment on that. Don't delete anything however. The photographs are probably in only a single folder, but Lightroom is set to show images in subfolders so they all show in each parent folder. You can check this by going to 'Library - Show Photos in Subfolders'. Uncheck that menu and Lightroom will only show the real photo count of each folder, not the count of all its subfolders as well.

[stephanieb88038528]

Thank you JohanEl54.   I've now unchecked the 'Show photo's in Subfolders and the photo count is zero in each one.  Does this mean it's OK to delete them?  My other folders in Lightroom aren't reflecting the same amount of photo's in the folders on the hard drive.

[JohanElzenga]

As I said before, I cannot give you advice about what to do without knowing the folder structure on disk. You can remove folders from Lightroom that contain zero images, providing that these folders do not contain subfolders that do have images. If you remove a folder, you will also remove all its subfolders, so be very careful.

[stephanieb88038528]

Thank you.  I've just added the file structure of the hard drive.

When I go to remove one of the folders that now say 0 - I get the following message.  This is so confusing - and stressful 😞

[JohanElzenga]

stephanieb88038528  wrote

Thank you.  I've just added the file structure of the hard drive.

When I go to remove one of the folders that now say 0 - I get the following message.  This is so confusing - and stressful 😞

That is why I wrote Do not remove folders that have a subfolder that contains images. You tried to do just that. All the way to the bottom of this folder tree there is a subfolder that contains 45423 photos. That is why Lightroom showed this number when you had ‘Show Photos in Subfolders’ still checked. Unchecking this menu doesn’t change this fact.

Please post a screenshot as well of the folder panel that shows the entire folder hierarchy. It is now cut off at the bottom and so it hides to most important clue.

[JohanElzenga]

OK, I checked your earlier screenshots and we need to know the name of the folder that I marked in red. Can you widen the panel (drag the panel edge) so you can see the full name and report that? Or post a screenshot?

[stephanieb88038528]

Hi JohanEl54 - I'm sorry for all of this messing.  I've just been trying to get the Navigator panel to go wider but it seems it's the widest I can get it - even shrinking the other panel doesn't help.  Is there anything else I can do?

[JohanElzenga]

OK, we'll try it another way then. Right-click on the '1 Photos' folder, and choose 'Hide This Parent' from the menu. That will show all its subfolders one level up. Then do the same with the '3 Foreign Travel' folder. Next do the same with the '2018 04 Barcelona Sitges Castelldefels Tarra....' folder. Next do the same with the '2017 11 South Africa' folder and so on and so forth. Each time the hierarchy should move one folder to the left, so the names at the botton become more visible. The last folder in that hierarchy is shown collapsed, so there is at least one more subfolder in there. Go on until you see a subfolder that shows an image count that is not zero. Then stop and make a screenshot again.

[stephanieb88038528]

I only have the following options when I right click.

[stephanieb88038528]

I've removed several parents but this message has now come up.  Sorry.

[JohanElzenga]

Another problem. The '3 Foreign Travel' folder itself contains two images. They probably shouldn't be there, but they are. That means you have to move these two images out of there before you can hide it. So click on that folder and look at the two images that Lightroom will show in the main window. Decide where they belong, select them both and drag and drop them onto the folder where they belong. Now the '3 Foreign Travel' folder should show zero images, so you can hide it and go on hiding each following folder.

[stephanieb88038528]

Thank you

I've removed the 2 stragglers from Lightroom.  All folders are collapsed but it still isn't possible to see the whole tree.  I haven't screen shotted the middle section as it's too long but here's a sample to show you.

I really appreciate your time helping me with this.

[JohanElzenga]

You have to continue to right-click and choose 'Hide This Parent' for the whole hierarchy, until you get to a folder that does not have zero image count. Same for the folder that is shown at the very bottom (the '2018 04 Barcelona' folder). It's a lot of work, but it's the only way to find the folder(s) that need(s) to be reconnected.

[stephanieb88038528]

Good morning JohanEl54

I don't mind doing whatever it takes to get this sorted.  I've gone through every folder and where it has allowed I've hidden the parent.  The remaning folders when I try to hide the parent come up with the message below - should I proceed when this message comes up?

Also when I right click on the folders at the bottom it only comes up with 2 options as in the image below.  Awaiting your advice

[JohanElzenga]

As for your first question: You should only hide all parent folders with a zero image count. Once you reach a folder that contains images, stop trying to hide it. But again your screenshot shows you were trying to hide a folder that does have images. Is there anything unclear in my instructions?

As for your second question: You can only hide the top folder of a folder hierarchy. Your screenshot shows you are trying to do this with a folder somewhere in the middle.

Please try to follow my instructions to the letter. Don’t try to speed up the process by going deeper in the hierarchy and don’t try to hide folders that contain images. If you don’t follow my instructions, then I can’t help you.

[stephanieb88038528]

Apologies JohanEl54 - I didn't understand that I was only to hide parent on only folders with 0 images. It's taken longer than it should because each time I hide a parent it takes my pc about 5 minutes to refresh the image count.   I've started again and was progressing well until I reached this folder and received this message. Thank you again for your patience.

[JohanElzenga]

It looks like your catalog is messed up even more than I thought. Hold on for now, I had already been thinking about a radically different approach, that I wanted to test out before telling you how it works. I’ll do that first, and will be back with a suggestion in an hour or two.

[JohanElzenga]

Unfortunately, the idea that I had doesn't work. Bummer. We will have to keep trying with the current approach. Are you sure that you didn't select the wrong menu this time? The error seems to suggest that Lightroom wanted to create a folder, not hide one. Maybe you selected 'Show Parent Folder' rather than 'Hide this Parent Folder'? Maybe you should just try it again.

[stephanieb88038528]

Thank you so much for taking time to try something else.  Yes bummer it doesn't work.

I've tried several times to hide the parent on this folder but unfortunately the same message keeps appearing.  I've tried again and it's the same.

[stephanieb88038528]

[JohanElzenga]

That is indeed a problem, because that means the method of relinking folders won't work because we can't see the folder that needs to be relinked. The only alternative is to relink at the image level. That doesn't mean you have to relink 45 thousand images one by one, but it could be a long task indeed. What you need to do is the following:

1: Go to menu 'Library - Find All missing Photos'. Lightroom will create a 'Missing Photos' collection in the top left panel.

2: Select the 'Missing Photos' collection, then look at the images in the main window. They will all have an exclamation mark in the upper right corner, indicating this is a missing photo.

3: Take an image that you recognize enough to know where to find it and click on that exclamation mark. You will get a dialog that tells you the image is missing, and that asks you if you want to try to locate it. Click on the 'Locate' button.

4: You will get a standard 'Open' dialog box. Navigate to the current location of the image and select it. At the bottom of the dialog you will see a checkbox to 'Find Nearby Missing Photos'. Check that box and then click the Select button of the dialog.

5: Lightroom will now 'reconnect' the selected photo, and all photos that it recognizes as part of the same folder hierarchy, so that could be quite a good number of them.

6: The 'Missing Photos' collection is not updated automatically, so run the 'Find All missing Photos' menu again to update it. Hopefully the number of photos still missing will be substantially lower! Repeat step 2 to 5 with another photo and keep repeating this till you have reconnected all of them...

[stephanieb88038528]

I'm on it!  It found 45903 missing photo's but because my folder structure on my hard drive is organised it should be easy to work through.  I've done the first one and on some - but not all photo's the exclamation marks are replaced by upward pointing arrows.  When I hover the mouse over it says Metadata was changed externally.

I'll plough my way through it and I'll let you know how I get on.

Thank you so much for your patience.