My edit history is not recognized after moving work from my laptop back onto my desktop

[j-andrews14]

Hi,

I hope someone might be able to help!!

I recently moved a folder on lightroom safely onto an external hard drive, as I needed to continue working on my laptop on the go (I've never done this before but I followed a youtube tutorial so hopefully its all good!). I managed to get the files open on my laptop as expected and spent a while editing the photos within the collection I'd previously created. Later on, when I plugged my external hard drive back into my desktop and opened up lightroom, there was no record of the edit history and no changes within the collection had been made. I still have all the files, as lightroom recognizes the location, but I want to know how to get the photos I spent all day editing back onto my desktop!

The odd thing is - when I plug the external hardrive back into my laptop all the edited changes are still there, but once plugged into my desktop they are no longer. I don't really know what has happened or what I have done so please excuse the poor explanation!!

Many thanks

Jasmine

[john beardsworth]

You need to learn to use File > Import from Another Catalog. The catalogue contains the edit history, the folder does not.

An alternative is to keep the catalogue itself on the external drive, which has pros and cons.

[j-andrews14]

Thankyou so much - this has seemed to recover the edit history! However - about half way through my collection the rest of the images appear to have the "?" in the corner, indicating they're missing. When I try and find their original location - a message pops up saying "The file "...." is associated with another photo in the catalogue. Each file can only be associated with one photo." I am baffled as to why only half of them have gone missing, when they are all in their supposed original location..?! What would you advise would be the best action now to take?

[john beardsworth]

j-andrews14  wrote

Thankyou so much - this has seemed to recover the edit history! However - about half way through my collection the rest of the images appear to have the "?" in the corner, indicating they're missing. When I try and find their original location - a message pops up saying "The file "...." is associated with another photo in the catalogue. Each file can only be associated with one photo." I am baffled as to why only half of them have gone missing, when they are all in their supposed original location..?! What would you advise would be the best action now to take?

Initially, resolve this slowly. First, back up the catalogue so that you can always get back to the current position, and don't be afraid of taking backups at different stages.

My guess is you moved some folders while on the laptop, and this has meant the desktop catalogue thinks there are two photos, one in each folder location.

Examine one missing photo and see which folder contains the "another photo in the catalogue". Decide which is right - the latest metadata, latest adjustments. Then do the same with other missing photos. See a pattern? I would predict that you are going to have to right click the folder containing the missing file, then Update Folder Location. You would then point to the real folder location and probably get asked if you want to merge the folders. But those are guesses, depending on a guess about what you've done.

So go slowly, investigate first, and backup when in doubt.

[Just Shoot Me]

The adjustment/edit history is stored in the Catalog file not in the image file or the folder the images are in.

[j-andrews14]

Thankyou so much - this has seemed to recover the edit history! However - about half way through my collection the rest of the images appear to have the "?" in the corner, indicating they're missing. When I try and find their original location - a message pops up saying "The file "...." is associated with another photo in the catalogue. Each file can only be associated with one photo." I am baffled as to why only half of them have gone missing, when they are all in their supposed original location..?! What would you advise would be the best action now to take?