Relinking files in folders and subfolders in Lightroom

[Robert_Ripps]

Every time I upgrade my images archive disk to a new, larger disk, I need to relink all the files in Lightroom. I know how to do it, but to do 15 years worth of images manually takes a long time, as I have 15-25 individual folders for each year. I am wondering if there is a way, perhaps a script, that if I point Lightroom to the new drive, it will let Lightroom go through all the folders and subfolders (which are the same structure as the previous disk) to automatically refind and relink all the images- the names would be the same, so that wouldn't be an issue.

Thanks.

[dj_paige]

You re-link the top level folder, not the individual subfolders. See Figure 4 and associated text here: Adobe Lightroom - Find moved or missing files and folders

[Robert_Ripps]

Thanks for the responses- DJ I understand how you are looking on left side, under folders listed as being on previous hard drive- folders show a question mark. I Control + Click, select Find Missing Folder to relink to files on new drive, and Lightroom finds all the files in that folder. But, it is still not finding any other folders until I specifically find them, which is what I am trying to avoid doing one by one. Unless I am missing something there?

When I go to Update Folder Location method discussed by figure 8, I see how to switch, but I can't do that as 1) I no longer have the original drive available, and 2), my file structure on new drive is slightly different in the sense that it has some folders loose within the new hard drive, and some under a parent folder. I don't like to move or copy folders/files using Mac OS, instead using my back up utility to copy over, then verify afterwards. So unless I want to redo the whole hard drive from scratch...

The folders from old hard drive that do exist on new hard drive in a parent folder I tried this method- I chose the parent folder, so that all the images in each of the sub folders under it would be found in one step, but I then got this message:

Not sure what it is trying to do, so I say no.

As to JSM's question- I keep all image files from current and past several years on one hard drive that gets backed up each night. Periodically, I take older files off that drive, and put them on a larger archive drive keeping same folder structure, but not same parent folder structure.

Once I have verified they copied correctly, I delete "originals" from working drive. But then Lightroom doesn't know where they are, so I relink them. Relinking one year's worth isn't too bad once a year, but I recently retired that archive drive, after copying (and verifying) all the files on it- about 15 years worth of images. I then put away that old archive hard drive and the backups of it into deep storage just in case. So now I want Lightroom to look for all the files on newest version of archive drive. Does that make sense?

[Just Shoot Me]

OK now I understand. When you upgrade a drive you shouldn't have to Relink them in LR "IF" the new drive has the same drive letter as the old and "IF" all the files are in the same folder structure.

"IF" you copy from old to new then use Disk Management to set the drive letter to the same letter the old drive had once you open LR is should see the drive, having the same drive letter and all the file in the same folder structure.

I have done this several time over the years when upgrading my main desktop computer. All my images are on my E drive and have been for more than 10 years through at least 4 different desktop computers.

Once I install LR and copy over my catalog file to the new desktop and point LR to use that copied catalog it sees all my images on the new computers E drive. If I change the E drive, for a bigger one or because of a failure, and copy all the images files from one of my backup drives LR has no problem seeing all images just as it did with the older E Drive.

I think your problem comes from allowing the new Archive drive to have a different drive letter (Or if you are on a Mac having a different drive name) than the older drive had.

Again if you use Disk Management (Windows) to assign the same drive letter the older archive drive was using and all the images are in the same folder structure you wouldn't have to Relink anything. On a Mac all you have to do is rename the drive to the same name as the older archive drive and LR will never know the difference. No Relinking needed.

[dj_paige]

DJ I understand how you are looking on left side, under folders listed as being on previous hard drive- folders show a question mark. I Control + Click, select Find Missing Folder to relink to files on new drive, and Lightroom finds all the files in that folder. But, it is still not finding any other folders until I specifically find them, which is what I am trying to avoid doing one by one. Unless I am missing something there?

It does not sound like you are doing what I suggested, which is to re-link the top level parent folder.

When I go to Update Folder Location method discussed by figure 8, I see how to switch, but I can't do that as 1) I no longer have the original drive available, and 2), my file structure on new drive is slightly different in the sense that it has some folders loose within the new hard drive, and some under a parent folder.

You don't need the original drive to be available.

If the file structure on the new drive is slightly different, then this is the cause of your problems. Lightroom really works best when the file structure is identical on both drive and when the files structures don't match, I don't know any other way to re-link than to do it folder by folder, one folder at a time. It is your workflow that causes the problems.

[Just Shoot Me]

I'm a bit confused. You state "Ever time Upgrade my images "ARCHIVE" disk". What Archive disk means to me is a Backup disk that holds "Copies" of all my images, Not the original images. What am I missing in your definition of Archive?

I have 2 external drives connected to my main desktop and a secondary computer on my network that holds "Copies" of all my images. In my main desktop there is one physical disk that holds all the original images and those original images are what LR references. None of the backup drives, what I think of as Archive disks, are seen by LR. They are just drives that hold copies of the original images and copies of any exported JPGs, TIFFs and maybe some PSDs.