Why has EVERY photo been duplicated and original renamed "original.[name]"?

[Ramblingweed]

Lightroom 6.0

Windows 8.1

New to LIghtroom.

All my photos have suddenly been duplicated and the original renamed "original.[filename]".  I now have 180,885 photos at 336 GB.

I can go through and delete every photo called original.xxx, having faith that a twin exists but,

     1- I'm concerned about loosing creation date etc, and,

     2 - how do I stop it doing this?  I truly do not need twice as many photos!

This phenomena is not just a library/catalog thing - the files exist on my hard drive.

Thanks for all suggestions.

Ramblingweed

[john beardsworth]

Post a screenshot showing the problem. Lightroom doesn't do this kind of thing without being told to do so. For example, when you imported, did you choose Copy?

Once we can see the problem, it might be possible to suggest a quick way to remove the duplicates, if they are indeed duplicates.

[Ramblingweed]

The files exist. This is not just a catalog view.  As for the import question and did I choose COPY... I can't say for sure.  Thanks.

[john beardsworth · Accepted solution]

OK, then Copy probably caused the problem.

How well are you backed up? What you could do is use the Library Filter (CtrlF on Win, CmdF on Mac) and go into the Text section. Change the dropdown box to Filename and enter original1. That would filter the catalogue (if you are in All Photographs) or the current folder to just these photos, and you could then delete them all n one go. Obviously you shouldn't do this until you are confident of what you are doing and can also rely on a backup.

[Ramblingweed]

I'm good with that. I have backups.  One question:  A random check on a pair of photos shows identical metadata, exif etc.  It appears Lightroom has duplicated photo and all embedded data.  Do you know for sure?  Chances are I would loose nothing when deleting all the original1 files, but I'm looking for reassurance :-}

[john beardsworth]

Well, I can't give you that, not 100%. But I can think of at least one obvious way why it might duplicate photos, and those duplicates would therefore contain identical metadata. I would suggest continuing to do spot checks until you are certain - Ctrl R or Cmd R is a quick way to open Explorer / Finder and go to the photo. Take your time - there are no prizes for rushing this kind of thing!