4 Replies Latest reply: Feb 20, 2008 2:38 PM by Lee Jay-7OQGJF RSS

    Selecting ONLY those fiels that need metadata written?

    hrh gracie Community Member
      How do I select ONLY those images that need the metadata written? I've got 40,000 images, change a number of keywords for different groups - add, delete, rename, whatever. I DON'T want to have to save metadata for all 40,00 files 'cause LR is already so slow... And doing a save metadata for every group I change is painful 'cause it takes foreve just to update even a few files. I've got the preference turned on to automatically write changes to xmp, but I'm not working with anything that has sidecar files...

      I want to be able to JUST select those images that need the metadata written out, then let it spend all night writing the changes.
        • 1. Re: Selecting ONLY those fiels that need metadata written?
          Lee Jay-7OQGJF Community Member
          If you have autowrite on, that's what it's doing - let it finish. If you select all and hit control-S, it'll just write out those that need writing.
          • 2. Re: Selecting ONLY those fiels that need metadata written?
            Community Member
            dkperez - I put in a feature request a long time ago asking for a way to isolate those photos whose metadata do not match the LR database.

            I have jpgs randomly spread through my catalog that, after selecting and hitting control-S, still indicate the metadata "Has been changed." The file date changes, but somehow LR can't resolved some conflict in it's database.
            • 3. Re: Selecting ONLY those fiels that need metadata written?
              hrh gracie Community Member
              Thanks Lee... But, that doesn't appear to be what I'm seeing. I've got autowrite on (at least as far as I know I do), but I can watch a set of files where I've made changes to keywords and even after all activity has stopped there'll be files with the metadata indicator showing they haven't been synchronized with the disk.... AND, I can go to Bridge and open one of these files and see that the keywords haven't been updated on the disk......

              So, even though I have autowrite on, I can't be SURE the changes actually got written. And last night I selected everything and did a "Save metadata"... Just over 12 HOURS later it was at the 3% completed... This was on a catalog of approximately 35,000 images.

              This is why I'd like to be able to just select those images needing updating. Hopefully, it'd be faster.
              • 4. Re: Selecting ONLY those fiels that need metadata written?
                Lee Jay-7OQGJF Community Member
                If I make a single change, then select an entire folder of images (say, 1000 or so) that were previously written, the write takes less than a second. It only writes that one.

                I'm not sure about doing that for all images - LR sometimes has trouble with imports and other things over 2000 images. Once they are in the library okay, then it does just fine, but I'd try to write those 35,000 images in 1-2000 image chunks. It shouldn't take more than perhaps half an hour per chunk, but it does have to write them all once. Of course, if this is an external or network drive it could take a lot longer.