CRISIS, folders gone

[davehileman]

I was preparing to move my LR library to an additional backup. I have a BU of photos only but not the LR structure. I had three main folders, 2014, 2015, 2016 with individual folders labeled, dated inside each. I also had two with question marks below the others. I fixed those by right clicking, find folder, choose and them labeled them in the correct years. I also had one folder, again, below the the others and on the same plane as the two with question marks. It was unlabeled and had one photo. It was a scan someone sent me of their mother and asked if it could be enhanced. I did that months ago and had no need for the photo. I deleted the photo and then clicked "remove" on the folder. Now ALL my folders are gone. My photos are still on the system but in a mass by date. I have no idea: 1. What I did and 2. Can it be corrected.

Kind of in a panic here.

[kglad]

[moved from Adobe Creative Cloud to Photoshop Lightroom]

[dj_paige]

Show us a screen capture (or several screen captures) of what you see to illustrate the problem.

Or restore backups of your catalog file and your photos from before you did this. You do have backups, don't you?

[davehileman]

[dj_paige]

I don't see any particular problem in your screen capture. Please explain further.

[davehileman]

I had 300 folders that I labeled and organized this week. They are gone. As I explained, when I hit remove this folder on one that was unrelated to the group, separate and below the others, everything else vanished. The problem is that they are no longer there. If this was a screen shot from 7:00 this morning you would see it populated with those folders.

[dj_paige]

What about a backup of the catalog file? Do you have that?

[davehileman]

Sorry I don't even know what that is.

I used Aperture when I stated photography. Then it went away. I tried two or three systems and did not like them. I started LR in 2015. At the time I thought it might not be the one to use either. So I just let it add folders by date and backed up photos. Then mid 2016 I decided to stay with LR. I started getting key words in place then last week, finally had time, renamed and organized all my folders, bought hard drives to do back-up and finished everything this morning except the two files that had questions and the file with one photo. I fixed the two with ? marks and then tried to remove the last file after I deleted the single photo in it. Presto, all the folders were gone, no undo.

[dj_paige · Accepted solution]

So, you have no backups of photos or catalog file. In that case, the only solution you can follow is to re-create your folders one by one, manually. Or use keywords in place of folders, which is probably what I would recommend. If your photos are still somehow in Lightroom, as the screen capture indicates, then DO NOT IMPORT the photos again.

In the future you need to make regular and automated backups of ALL of your photos, and also regular and automated backups of your catalog file. All backups must be on a different disk than the originals, this is not optional, it is mandatory.

[davehileman]

I have backups of the photos not the folders. That is what I was in the process of doing. I just bought hard drives to accomplish this task.