Lightroom 5 and a new MacBook Pro moving files

[GeeFive]

I am still using LR 5 and before I bought my new Mac I moved 6 folders to an external drive using LR5 to make the move. Since I have done that I now have a 4 TB drive and I want to move my folders from the old external drive to the new one and use LR to do it. When I try to drag the folder to the new drive I get an error with a list of numbers and it says it can't be completed.  4 gb files should take some time but the progress bar moves very fast before the error. When I look in the destination folder only the empty folder that I tried to move is there.

If, on the other hand, I try to move the files within the finder then LR doesn't see the new files although they are there when I look in the finder.

I've moved files around using LR in the past with out any trouble and I have checked the permissions on both external disks and all is fine. It's a MacBook Pro with Sierra.

any help would be appreciated

[dj_paige]

Moving Lightroom and photos to a new computer:

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/how-move-lightroom-to-new-computer/

After moving files in Finder, you can re-connect them inside of Lightroom

Adobe Lightroom - Find moved or missing files and folders

If you want help with moving photos from within LR (not recommended), we'd need to know what the error message said word-for-word, verbatim, unedited.

[GeeFive]

dj_paige, thanks for those links

I've moved all of my photos from the old external drive to the new one. When I check in the finder, they are all the same size which seems to indicate that they are exact copies. However, in LR, I don't see all of the folders and some of the folders don't show to total number of photos.

So, my problem boiled down, is that I still can't link all of the folders and files in LR. When I go to one of the problem folders, the contextual menu does give me a 'find missing folder' I do see 'synchronize folder' but that doesn't change anything. None of the folders in the new location have badges or question marks to indicate something is wrong. LR just doesn't see them.

Basically the problem I have is the same as before.

Thanks anyway.

[dj_paige]

GeeFive  wrote

dj_paige, thanks for those links

I've moved all of my photos from the old external drive to the new one. When I check in the finder, they are all the same size which seems to indicate that they are exact copies. However, in LR, I don't see all of the folders and some of the folders don't show to total number of photos.

So, my problem boiled down, is that I still can't link all of the folders and files in LR. When I go to one of the problem folders, the contextual menu does give me a 'find missing folder' I do see 'synchronize folder' but that doesn't change anything. None of the folders in the new location have badges or question marks to indicate something is wrong. LR just doesn't see them.

Basically the problem I have is the same as before.

Thanks anyway.

Did you re-arrange the photos within the folder hierarchy -- move photos from one folder to another -- during this move or immediately before or after?

LR does not have to mirror your hard disk as it is not a file browser like Windows Explorer or Mac Finder.

If you "still can't link all of the folders and files in LR", this strongly suggests that the photo is already in Lightroom, but Lightroom thinks it is in a different folder than the one you are looking in, probably because it was imported accidentally using the COPY option. Please try this search, perform all 4 steps in order:

1. Click on All Photographs (it's on the left hand side of the Library Module under Catalog)
2. Turn off all filters (Ctrl-L once or twice)
3. Expand all stacks (Photo->Stacking->Expand All Stacks)
4. Using the Lightroom Filter Bar, click on text, set the dropdown to File Name and type in the file name of one of these photos that won't show up in your Lightroom.

Let us know if you find the photos using this method.

[GeeFive]

dj_paige, once again thanks for your reply.

all the filters are off

all the stacks are expanded

and if I use the text filter to find a file by name it doesn't show up.

As shown above 'archival files' is the WD external drive and 'LaCie' is the new one. All of the folders are the same on both drives (and the same size) but they don't show up in LR. One had roughly 14K photos and the other only show 3905.

[dj_paige]

GeeFive  wrote

dj_paige, once again thanks for your reply.

all the filters are off

all the stacks are expanded

and if I use the text filter to find a file by name it doesn't show up.

Did you click on All Photographs?

[GeeFive]

yes 'All Photographs'

[dj_paige]

Show me a screen capture so I can see that you have clicked on all photographs and that you have done the search properly and it results in zero photos found.

[GeeFive]

This only shows the photo in the old external drive and no file with that name in the new drive.

I'm wondering if I were to simply remove the whole folder and start from scratch would that help.

[dj_paige · Accepted solution]

So it did find the photo!

This is why you can't import the photo again. It's already in Lightroom. This is the photo you want. By default, you can't have the exact same photo in lightroom more than once. The issue is to now associate it with the file on the new drive.

At this point, a lot of people in many different threads start thinking about starting over. THIS IS THE WRONG THING TO DO. THIS WILL MAKE MATTERS WORSE.

WE CAN FIX THIS. Are you with me, or not?

Right click on this photo, select to Go To Folder in Library. This should highlight the folder (in the folder panel on the left) that contains the photo on the old drive. Right click on the folder, select Update Folder Location, and then select the corresponding folder on the new drive.

[GeeFive]

I seem to be at a loss here and I am really no further ahead than when I started.

You said that LR won't allow the same photo twice but in fact it does for 3900 photos that show both on the old drive and the new drive so something is off in that regard

As I was replying I went back into LR and updated the folder locations for all the folders one at a time and that did the trick.

Thanks very much for your responses they were very helpful once I got my head wrapped around what I had to do.