Using the Import with Move Command in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3
Please read Getting Started: What Does “Import” Mean in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom? before proceeding with this tutorial.
Two new video tutorials today for beginning Adobe Photoshop Lightroom users on how to import and move files from one hard drive to another using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. In my opinion, most photographers will get more joy out of Lightroom if they store both their index (the Lightroom Catalog files) and all of their photographs on an external drive. See My Photo Storage System: Two External Hard Drives for more details on my file storage philosophy.
These videos are intended to help new Lightroom users find their photos, or the folders full of images, that currently live on their internal hard drive. Most beginning users need the extra help with this process and its great to know that Lightroom can do all of the heavy lifting. Once we have found these folders we can use Lightroom to copy, or move, these files over to an external disk. Before you start this process though I suggest reading all of the posts on how Lightroom works, and on how to best set up your preferences, in the Getting Started Right with Lightroom 3 section of our website. You will want all of these settings and templates in place before you start moving lots of files around with Lightroom.
If you are needing help with importing I urge you to also watch this tutorial on how to build an Import Preset in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3. An Import Preset can make life simpler and make importing new files far more efficient.
Filed Under: (03) Importing • Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Tutorials
About the Author: David Marx is a digital photography instructor whose engaging teaching style inspires photographers of all skill levels. David is an Adobe Certified Photoshop and Photoshop Lightroom Expert. David has led Adobe Photoshop / Photoshop Lightroom seminars and digital photography field workshops for The Rocky Mountain School of Photography, FirstLight Workshops, The American Society of Media Photographers, and the world-renowned Blackberry Farm Resort. To learn more about David's software seminars and field photography workshops, please visit 
Dear David:
Disregard the previous post, as I found I did not click import on the right panel after setting all the parameters.
Dave
Dear David:
I was watching the video ‘Importing from a single folder to LR3′ and performing the function as you were explaining what to do. For some reason, technician error, I clicked on the import button before I set metadata and destination information. The files are going into my ext HD ‘Photos Go Here’ folder. I did have ‘move’ selected. Is it too late to arrange via subfolders and include metadata? I really like to have them in folders with a name rather than a date.
Thanks
Dave
After spending several hours trying to Copy folders with images from one external drive to a larger one – Using Import> Source> Copy > Destination I was stumped. I did everything that you indicated in “Importing and Moving Images in LR” Except I did not want to move just copy to the new location since this was the safest way. But once in the import mode the images were “greyed-out” so I could not “select them” to copy to a mew destination.
I called Adobe help line and they said that what i was trying to do was “not possible” since the images were already “imported”. I did not want to reimport just copy from one location to the next so that LR would know where they were. Adobe said to copy the folder/files to the other drive using window and then relink at new location.
Why would this not work?
Dear Helga,
You could not use the Import and Copy command because your Lightroom Catalog already contains a reference point for these images! Rather than re-importing–creating a second (possibly forbidden) new reference point for these files–watch these tutorials on how to move the images from place to place from within Lightroom.
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David Marx
Hi David,
Thanks in advance for any help you can give me with this.
I’m feel I should elaborate a bit on that last comment as I now see a difference between my scenario and the one you’ve demonstrated. In you’re demonstration, the photos are being imported to lightroom for the first time. In my case, I’ve already imported the photos into a catalog on my internal drive, and want to move both the images and the catalog to the external drive.
to reiterate my problem – in the import menu, when I select the ‘pictures’ folder on the internal drive, to move to the desired folder on the external drive, all of the images are greyed out, and if I mouse over the ’0 photos/ 0 bytes’ in the bottom left of the menu, the message, “no photos found. ignoring 15000 previously imported photos” appears.
however, when I check the external drive in the OS, the images are not located there, nor are they if I select the external drive in lightroom library mode.
Thanks again if you could point me in the right direction!
Jim
Dear Jim Gates,
Looks like you found part of the trouble on your own! Again, the problem here is that the files that you want to move are already in your Lightroom index. Since they are in the index you cannot move them using the Import utility. But you can easily move them from within the program or at the operating system level. My response to your previous post has all the details.
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David Marx
Hi,
thanks for the tutuorial, it’s very informative. However, I’m about to shuffle a mess of photos to an external HD, but the LR importer is not selecting all of the files I want to move. The import dialogue states ‘ignoring previously imported files’. I’ve selected ‘All photos’ and ‘move’ in the import interface.
I’m moving the files to an external that currently houses time machine files. Is that why it states there is a conflict with already imported files?
Thanks,
Jim
Dear Jim Gates,
Your guess about the external drive that holds your TimeMachine backup was a good one but Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is trying to tell you that some of those files are already in your catalog. Lightroom’s Import Dialog will not move these because you have the “Do Not Import Suspected Duplicates” switch turned on. This is a good thing! If it was to move the files then it would shatter their existing references within your index.
To move these files see our tutorial on Moving Files and Folders from within Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. This advice is a little late perhaps but you probably want to create separate partitions on your external disk– one for TimeMachine’s backups and one for your images. Using two separate external hard drives would be an even better solution. TimeMachine is a wonderful utility but it is designed to completely monopolize all of the free space on an external drive or partition. Mixing your images and it’s backups together will fill the disk awfully quick. For more advice on external hard drives see:
My Two External Hard Drive Photo Storage System
Recommended External Hard Drives
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David Marx
Hello David:
You’re a genius. I deleted the thumbnail cache, and Lightroom just finished generating new thumbnails. Everything looks as it should. Thanks so much for an easy solution. I never would have come up with that on my own.
Cheers
Becky Brockie
I’m going to try moving them by myself then. The pictures weren’t there before, I don’t know why that happens! Thanks so much for your quick answer David!
Hello David:
I was in Summer SI 2010 and you know how you said it’s not a matter of if but when your hard drive fails . . . I may have hit the when.
A description of the problem: after plugging in my primary external drive that holds my Lightroom catalog, my PC (Dell Studio laptop) gave me a message stating the external drive had an error-would I like to scan and fix it. I said yes.
After the scan, I skimmed my photograph thumbnails in Lightroom and noticed that the incorrect thumbnails appeared for several of my photographs. If I clicked on the incorrect thumbnail and hit D for develop, I saw the correct image.
Suspecting a bug, I pulled out my backup external drive to see if the problem exists there. Luckily, I saved several versions of my Lightroom catalog on the backup drive. The most recent backup had the same error as my main drive. However, a previous backup did not seem to have the problem.
Here’s where I need your help. I have no idea whether or not I should trust the stability of my main external drive, but I’ve considered exporting the two weeks of files living in my current catalog that are not in the safe backup I found and starting over with a new catalog. Is this a good plan of attack, and if so, would you put the new catalogue on the same drive if I first scanned the drive with McAfee?
Thanks.
Becky Brockie
Hello Becky Brockie,
Good to hear from you. Sorry that you are having drive troubles. Creating a new catalog on a more reliable hard drive is a solution. This is not a bad idea but the new catalog will lack all of your collections, virtual copies, and pick flags. I would only go this route if all other options fail. Restoring from an older copy of your Lightroom Catalog is a better option but it’s possible that your current catalog can be salvaged. Props on having backups and planning for disk failure!
If I were you I would do the following things right away:
1. Check on your Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Preferences. Make sure that the “Automatically Write Changes into the XMP” preference switch in the Catalog Settings menu is turned on. Turning this switch on will automatically pass all of your metadata changes–including your develop settings and crops–down to each file’s Metadata block.
2. Run your backup system to insure that all of your digital image files–old images, new images, everything photographic–now exists on more than one drive.
Once we know that your images are safely backed up you could try experimenting. With Lightroom turned off you could removing the Previews.lrdata file from using your current catalog’s folder. It’s possible that your thumbnails cache is damaged but the catalog file is fine. Removing the Previews.lrdata file and then re-launching your catalog should force Lightroom to generate new thumbnails and previews for every file in your current catalog. It will take the computer a long time to build a whole new set of thumbnails and previews but this might fix the problem. If it works then back everything up again see what happens.
If you need more help please shoot me an email (david@thelightroomlab.com) and we can talk about arranging a remote tech support session. Hopefully though replacing that Previews file will fix everything.
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David Marx
Hello David, thanks so much for this tutorial. I just did it but strangely it didn’t move all my pictures. It just grabbed scattered pictures from scattered folders and left the rest!! I have about 12.000 pictures and it moved only 1800! So weird. Have you seen that happened? Do you think I’m dong something wrong?
Dear Dariela,
I wonder if the photos it left behind were already on your external drive. If they were, and if you have the “don’t re-import suspected duplicates” preference switch turned on then the program intentionally left the other images behind. If this is what happened then it left the other files behind so that nothing on the external disk was overwritten. You could remove the Lightroom reference points for these 1800 photos, move all of those folders over to the new disk yourself using your operating system, and then import everything using the Add to Catalog Command.
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David Marx
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David Marx
Hi David, thanks for sharing this.
Could you please clarify for me?
I’ve got a huge Catalogue on my internal hard drive. If I move these files to my external, will I need to rebuild the catalogue all over again? or will the links stay with it?
Many thanks, Don.
Dear Don,
Moving your Adobe Photoshop Lightroom catalog to the “>right external hard drive will not mess up the existing relationship between your image file’s and their Lightroom thumbnail (placeholder.) Our tutorial on how to move your Lightroom Catalog to an external disk might help.
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David Marx
Hi David,
Thanks for all the informative information on your site.
Question:
I tried doing this tutorial as my internal hard drive was really getting full. I thought I followed the procedure to a T, but obviously not.
I moved the Lightroom files, however, not all my image files were moved and got deleted. I had just backed up to a different external about a month ago, so not a huge deal, but still disappointing. This is why you copy right. Lesson learned there. Really a bone head, amateur move.
So, I’m getting a lot of question marks, as the photos really aren’t there.
Is there a way to just start over again without reinstalling Lightroom? Can I move the images I have to my second external, then delete the Lightroom cat folders, and once I open Lightroom again, will it just create a new catalog since it won’t see one?
I’d really just like to start clean, as it looks like a real mess.
Thanks.
Dear Scott,
First, I am glad that you haver everything backed up. It’s great to know that you could restore everything to month ago if needed but I don’t think I would go to that extreme yet. I am going to guess here that you moved files / folders from drive to drive outside of Lightroom which is why you are now getting a lot of question marks. If I were you I would try using the Find Missing Folder command first to see if you can reconnect your actual images with their Lightroom placeholders.
If reconnecting Lightroom’s index with your folders and files fails then you could delete your existing Adobe Photoshop Lightroom catalog and then start all over. This tutorial on Photoshop Lightroom Catalog creation and this tutorial on Importing Files using the Add to Catalog Command will help if you decide to go that route.
There is a danger though to starting all over. If you create a new catalog, and delete your existing one, you will loose all of your collections, virtual copies, and pick / reject flags. You could also loose all of your work if you have failed to save your changes down to each and every file’s metadata block.
Best of luck,
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David Marx
Dave thanks for sharing your wisdom. Maybe one day I’ll get lucky enough to attend one of your workshops where I can get it all!
Dave in response to my last inquiry, I believe you were simply filtering your pictures so that only those with a high rating would show. Am I correct?
Dear Al Joyner,
You have been watching closely! There are actually three tricks at play here. First, I usually sort my images by colored label or star rating so that the top rated images appear above all of the others in the grid view. It’s easy to set this up thanks to Adobe Photoshop Lightroom’s Library Module Tool Bar. Second, I often link the images that I want to use for a video tutorial together using Collections. I can show just a small portion of the images in my giant catalog even if they are of completely different subjects thanks to Collections.
Third, I should admit that for video recording I often create tiny little catalogs with a temporary copy of my favorite files. I should keep this quiet but in the interest of full disclosure I will admit it. It’s easier on my hardware when I am capturing video to use a tiny catalog featuring only the relevant images. I trash these catalogs–but not the images–as soon as the movie is completed. I make these mini catalogs by first creating a collection in my real Lightroom catalog and then using the Export Collection as a Catalog feature! It’s one of the few places where I find this feature useful and again I trash these mini-catalogs asap so that they don’t confuse me.
Thanks again for paying such close attention and for the excellent questions.
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David Marx
Dave with your assistance I got my problem (involving my two external drives) solved. Mucho thanks! The solution was simpler than I thought it would be.
A different simple question. On most of your videos when you are showing one of your LIghtroom folders what the viewer almost always sees are only your “winners” or “keepers.” The pictures are often of different subjects. In other words, we don’t see the hundreds of pictures you may have shot on the same day–those many pictures from which you have culled the “keepers.” The exception to this was the video where you illustrated the advantage of using Keywords where you had many pictures of your rafting trip with friends.
My question is this: how does one organize their pictures in Lightroom so that when one goes to the folder for a given day (your folders are organized by date) only the “keepers” appear. I assume these pictures are not a Collection, since they are in a folder labled with the date they were shot. Are the non-keepers retained in a separate folder. If so how are you separating them? Is there a specific video or videos you can refer me to? Thanks.
Dave I am trying to execute your suggested option #2 in reference to my two external drives.
When I right click as you suggested on the parent folder [which I call “Pictures Go Here”] for all my Lightroom files, I do not get the option “Add Parent Folder” nor do I get “Promote Subfolders” as an option. All the other options in your example appear. I am using Lightroom 3.
I have checked and I have the latest updates. I believe my preferences are properly set. I have turned my computer off, then on again. No luck. Any suggestions?
Dear Al Joyner,
Hmm… Are you sure that you are right-clicking on the folder’s name? Also, is the folder “missing?” If so you might need to use the Find Missing Folder Command and reconnect one of your folders before the “Add Parent” command is available. But to solve your original dilemma–switching from one drive to another– you are really needing the “Update Folder Location” Command. If that one is available go for it!
David Marx
David, I have an odd way I want to use Lightroom, but am not sure HOW to get my photos into a catalog to use them in multiple collections.
I have thousands of photos stored on one drive (and a backup on another drive).
I want to create a new catalog in my new Lightroom 3 of only my best RAW and JPG files. I want the actual physical files on my internal drive, so that I never touch the external “library” of photos and so I don’t have to keep the external drive on all the time.
So, my questions is: What is the best way to import those individual files scattered in many different folders. (Folders are organized by date and subject.)
Second, when I create different collections, will LR then want to make physical copies of each file in each collection? (Example, one photo of Robin in a tree – I want in a bird collection and in a backyard collection.) Is there any way of pointing to the original photo in the main Catalog from the smart collections or not so smart ones?
thanks,
ilene
Dear Ilene Hoffman,
Apologies if this sounds like a gruff response but you need a deeper understanding of what Collections actually do in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. A Collection is not like an operating system level folder. It is not a storage place for your files. Collections are a way to tie files together so that they appear in your Lightroom index with the push of a single button even if the real files live on completely separate hard drives.
Likewise, I don’t see any reason to separate out your best files. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom’s develop module is completely non-destructive. Why not just mark your favorite images with stars or colored labels and then you can sort them out from the rest of your image just by using a metadata search?
Apologies if this is more my opinions then step-by-step answers. I am worried though that you are about to make your life more complicated with multiple catalogs and unnecessary copies of your best files.
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David Marx
Hi David,
Hope you have completely thawed out from your trip. The photos you posted from the students were amazing. I have put your “Fall Tour” (if it happens) on my bucket list.
My situation: I set everything up exactly as you described, buying new HDDs and setting my catalog and files up externally. I then imported all my photos using LR3 in as .dng files. I had about 35000 original photos to move that were stored on several hard drives. Some of the photos were backups of old drives and had duplicate photos in different folders so I checked the Do Not Import Duplicate box.
So, after spending 4 days of consistent importing and converting, I now show 68700 photos in my Photo’s Go Here Folder. Again, I did have the Do Not Import Duplicate box checked, but apparently they imported anyway and not just one duplicate of each photo, some have three, some have six.
My Question: Is there another way of fixing these duplicates short of exporting all the files to another drive and buying a duplicate file finding program, then reimporting them (I don’t even want to think how long that is going to take as I am using USB2 ports)?
I have found through a web search for a duplicate finder plug in for LR, do you have any experience with that program?
Thanks for all your videos and advice.
Don
Dave thanks for your answer. Your clarification clears up much. I had mistakingly made my larger “stay at home” disk my primary disk, the one that does not leave home. This is the drive that is indexed to Lightroom. What is the best way to switch them so that the smaller LaCie drive is the drive that is indexed to Lightroom? Do I have to start over?
Secondly, if you ever have to use the backup disk as the “new” primary, how does it become Lightroom accessible? Just import the disk contents into Lightroom?
Dear Al Joyner,
Option 1: You could start over with a new catalog and then use the Import with Add command to create new reference points for all of the folders on the primary storage disk. See our tutorial on creating a new Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Catalog and this tutorial on using the Import with Add Command.
Option 2: Use the Find Missing Folder Command or its cousin the Update Folder Location Command to change your existing reference points so that they now lead to the appropriate folders on the primary disk. The advantage to this technique is that it will preserve your collections, virtual copies, and flags. These features will be lost if you go with option 1.
The answer to your second question is basically the same. If you had to use the backup disk as the new primary you could either change the hard drive’s name to whatever the old primary disk was called or you could use the Find Missing Folder command to update your reference points. Hopefully though you will never need to do this and the backup will just be there for peace of mind.
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David Marx
Hi David,
I have gotten myself into a real jam that I hope you can help me resolve. I had set up my system according to your dual external hard drive protocol. In a weak moment, I let a friend convince me to put everything back on the MAC HD. Recently, I decided that was not what I wanted. I copied all the photos to a folder on the desktop as a single folder(photos go here). I reformatted the external hd and started fresh, even uninstalling and then reinstalling LR3. I then tried to import the files from the desktop folder. The import fails to complete with only a portion of the files moved before there is a freeze of progress. Please help guide me back into a usable framework. I have reviewed your video tutorials multiple and don’t understand where the problem resides. Thanks very much.
Mark
Dear Mark Greenberg,
First let me ask when did you make your last complete backup of the primary external photo storage hard drive. If you have a solid backup then the easiest solution might be to restore everything from your backup disk to the recently reformatted primary. Also, what happened to your old Lightroom catalog? Is it now on the internal drive or did it get deleted too?
If the restore from backup option is not going to work out then you might try moving the “Photos Go Here” folder from your desktop onto the primary yourself using the operating system. After you have moved the images over to your external disk you could use the Find Missing Folder command to reconnect everything with your existing Lightroom catalog if it still exists. If not then you should build a new catalog and import the entire Photos Go Here Folder and all of its sub-folders from the external disk using the Import with Add command.
I hope this helps. Please write me back if you need more advise or if you are interested in hiring us for one-on-one remote tech support.
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David Marx
David I very much appreciate your tutorials. I find them much more informative than other resources on the net.
A number of Lightroom 3, 101 questions regarding the external drive (Drive 1) and a second backup drive (Drive 2) [the one you carry around with you]. Drive 2 is connected into the back of Drive 1 and both appear on the Desktop.
First, for Drive 2 to appear in the Lightroom Folder Panel (with the green light), does it (some or all of its files) have to be imported into Lightroom?
Second, does this entire Drive 2 have to be imported into Lightroom in order for all of its contents to be accessible in Lightroom? i.e. for all the photos to be seen.
Third, as new photos are added to Drive 1, and THEN backed up on Drive 2, (as with Carbon Copy Cloner) do these “New” photos also have to imported into Lightroom i.e. every time photos are added (imported), then backed up on Drive 2, do they always have to be “imported” into Lightroom in order to be accessible? In short backing up from Drive 1 (Using Carbon Cloner) to Drive 2 does not make them accessible on the second drive alone???
As one gets deeper in the Lightroom 3 forest, more questions arise.
Dear Al,
Before I can answer your questions I think that we need to make my choice of words more clear. I use an external hard drive for my photo storage. This external hard drive is the primary storage disk. All images–new and old, tiff or jpeg, good or bad–are stored on this hard drive. My Lightroom catalog indexes every file on this drive and Lightroom has been trained to put my files onto this external disk when emptying a memory card.
The second external disk in my photo storage system is a backup disk. None of the files on this disk are referenced in my Lightroom index. Carbon Copy Cloner is responsible for keeping this disk up to date so that it is a perfect mirror of the primary. It is definitely not listed in my Lightroom Catalog’s Folder Panel. The backup disk’s sole purpose is to save my butt when the primary eventually crashes out. On that horrible day it will be promoted but it, and the files that it contains, are not connected to my Lightroom index.
Once the role of the two drives is clear then your other questions answer themselves. Since the backup disk is not in the Lightroom index its contents are not accessible to Lightroom and I would never import any of the files on this disk into my Lightroom index! Again, disk two simply mirrors the primary storage. It’s there only for that really bad day when my favorite external hard drive dies.
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David Marx
Hi David – Thanks for all your help! So I’ve been working on backing up all my LR photos, or should I say, moving all of the actual original files off my iMac and onto two LaCie external drives (one used for main storage, I will call it #1 and one that I just wanted to pack away as backup for a rainy day, #2). I know I now need one more external disc for backing up, but that’s for another time. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong though and I’m going crazy. Everything had been moved successfully to both drives, so I thought, but when I unplugged the disc that I wanted to store away (#2), all my originals stayed in LR properly, on the new main disc #1, however, all the photographs within my collections module (where I have done ALL my editing work), is giving me the “?” missing file error message. So I hooked back up the second back-up drive, #2 to “locate the missing files”, but as soon as I do that, the error message disappears, even though it appears that I’m still pointing to the same disc (#1) that gives me the error message in the first place! I’m sure this post is a mess and completely unreadable, but hopefully you can help in some way!
Thanks so much…
Best,
Jess
Dear Jessica Delaney.
I think that you need to do plug both drives in and then start up Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. Once your into Lightroom go to your folder’s panel in the Library Module and right-click on one of your top level folders. Use the Add Parent Folder Command so that you can see exactly what folder contains all of your images. Once you have the root (what I call my Photo’s Go Here) folder in your drill down right-click quit Lightroom and disconnect the second drive. Now restart Lightroom and use the Find Missing Folders command to tell the program that this root folder really lives on drive #1. This should tell Lightroom to update its path to all of your files.
If this works then use a powerful backup utility like Carbon Copy Cloner to copy everything that is on primary drive over to the second external disk.
Best of luck and if you don’t get anywhere please write us back and we can chat about our private tutoring / tech support services,
David Marx
Dear David
I want to let you know that as a daily resource, you are the go-to guy. Your tutorials are short and sweet, and your thorough responses to this and everyone else’s comments shows your level of commitment.
As I type this, I am moving my huge catalog (which has completely clogged my MBPro’s HD) over to the external OWC Raid drive that you suggested. And I will be renaming all of the files with your suggested name_date_filename. (and of course, backing the raid drive up with my other drives!)
Thanks for the great Standard Operating Procedures.
Chris
My Bad for the previous comment, I checked with D65 and they too locate the catalog on an external drive, due to the gigantic 100+gig size of their library. But obviously, as you have said, it requires a fast firewire drive or raid.
Dear Chris Jones,
There are three good reasons why a professional might choose to store their images and their Adobe Photoshop Lightroom catalog on an external hard drive:
1. Storage capacity– My MacBook Pro laptop, for example, does not have a large enough internal hard disk to hold a decades worth of professional digital photography. Storing files on high-speed high-quality external drives is much less expensive then replacing the internal disk or the whole computer.
2. Multiple computer support- If all of your images and your index live on an external disk then its easy to use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom on more than one computer without having to create multiple indexes. Lightroom is not a network-ready application so only one computer can read and write from a catalog file at a time but by storing all of the files externally it is easy to switch from machine to machine. Whatever computer is connected to that external disk has access to all of the images and the Lightroom index. You can even use this trick to work with the same Lightroom index on multiple operating systems with the right drive setup. (See formatting an external hard drive for more details.)
3. Portability- Arguable this is just another variation on the previous two points but its a lot easier to travel with a laptop and an external disk then with a desktop. Because all of my images, and my Lightroom catalog, are on my external drive I can carry my history in photography around in a small backpack. Since I am often out on the road for weeks at a time leading Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and digital photography workshops the ability to carry everything in a small case is a huge plus.
I have the utmost respect for Seth Resnick and the D65 workshop’s philosophy. We disagree on lots of things– like the pros and cons of multiple Lightroom catalogs–but I think that we both share a similar interest: using this software to make our lives easier and to produce top-quality images.
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David Marx
Dear David-
Why do you suggest keeping your catalog on an external drive where you can’t access them if that drive is not with you?
If I am not mistaken, Seth Resnick (D65) suggests that we keep the catalog with 1:1 previews on the internal drive so we can at least make slide shows, send samples to clients, etc
Thanks
Chris
Hi again,
So I think the part that’s confusing me on using LR to move the files is that the dialogue box under “move” says “move photos to a new location and add to catalog”. Obviously I wouldn’t want to reimport the photos into my catalog, which is why I’d enable the button “don’t import selected duplicates”. But does that mean it also won’t *move* those files? I understand that there are 2 functions here: move and import. I just want to make sure that LR isn’t going to not move certain files because they aren’t also being imported.
Sorry if I’m missing the obvious here. I appreciate the help!
I do understand that this
Dear Annie Florin,
My bad! I wasn’t paying close enough attention. This post is on moving files from one drive to another from inside but of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom but the critical detail here is that to use the Import and Move Command you must be adding in files that are not already in your Lightroom index! In Lightroom terminology “Import” means to create a reference point within your Catalog. If a file is already in the index then the program won’t allow you to create a second reference to the same image which is a good thing but it creates the frustration that you are seeing where the images are all grayed out in the Import dialog. Again, my bad. This tutorial is for folks with images that are not already in their index.
For you though there are still choices. You could move the parent folder outside of Lightroom and then use the “Locate Missing Folder” button to reconnect your index with the Pictures folder that is now on your external drive. The other option is to have Adobe Photoshop Lightroom move your folders using click-and-drag from within the Library Module Folder’s Panel. Like I said in the last comments, moving the parent folder yourself is much faster, and easier, as long as you can reconnect everything in a single click. Moving the folders from within Lightroom is slower, and more tedious, but it maybe easier if your image folders are not all contained within a single parent.
Apologies for the confusion!
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David Marx
Hi Dave,
Am I understanding correctly that this tutorial is only for totally new LR users who are importing for the first time, not for those who currently have LR catalogs established? I believe that’s the case but want to make sure I’m not missing something.
Can you advise on the best way to move photos from an internal to an external for those who’ve already imported all images to LR and have an extensive, working catalog? Should I be moving the “pictures” folder from the Macintosh HD to the designated external and then rerouting LR by clicking on the “?” to select the new source? Is this the most efficient way? (All photos are in the “pictures” folder and nowhere else, if that helps to know.)
Thanks so much!
Annie
Dear Annie Florin,
Nice to hear from you and I am glad that you still find our site useful. There are two ways to move everything from one drive to another. As you point out one option is to move the parent folder outside of Lightroom and then use the Locate Missing Folder button to reconnect everything. This option works well if all of your files / folders live inside a single parent folder. In your case the parent folder is the Mac’s internal Pictures folder. Just be sure to right-click and use the Add Parent Folder button in the Lightroom Folder’s panel before you do the move so that you can reconnect it and all of the sub-folders that it contains in a single click!
The other option is to use Lightroom to move the files for you and that’s what this video is all about. Two ways to accomplish the same task! No matter which method you choose be sure to back everything up before you start just in case something goes wrong.
Best of luck,
David Marx
Hi David
I have a lot of photos on my old pc (some of them not sure if all, are backed up on an external drive), about a year ago I moved to a macbook and started importing and backing up all the new photos to it and the new external.
Is there a good and efficient way to re-organize my whole mess into LR and my new external drive?
Mabye installing LR on my pc, creating a brand new back up of the photos lying there, then import the whole thing to my mac?
Alon
Dear Alon,
I don’t think that you need to create a new Lightroom catalog on the PC. If I were you I would track down all the old photographs that live in this machine and copy them onto an external hard drive, a thumbdrive, or DVDs. Once you have these files on a removable storage device bring them over to your new Mac and use Lightroom to copy them to your primary photo storage area and add them into your index. You might find some useful tidbits in this tutorial on importing scattered files and folders using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. If you are going to use an external hard drive, or a thumbdrive, to gather up your files from the old PC make sure that it is formatted with the FAT32 file allocation standard so that it can be read by both operating systems.
–
David Marx
David,
After upgrading can I rename the new LR3 catalog so it’s the same as the LR2 (after discarding the old one). And move it on disk? I still have the initial one made by LR2 (the first time)
Thanks.
Harry
Dear Harry,
You certainly can rename your Lightroom catalog and move it from disk to disk. This tutorial on how to move your catalog from one drive to another might help. Once you move the catalog be sure to check double check your preferences again particularly the choice of which catalog to automatically load on startup.
–
David Marx
Hey, David. I first want to say that your tutorials have been a lifesaver. Thank you so much for all of the work you have put into this. The second thing, is that I followed the instructions for transferring files from internal to external. For some reason all of my flagged photos in each of the albums are missing. Thankfully I backed up my pictures in a couple of places, although I’m concerned that even if I retrieved them, all of the presets I used didn’t follow. Any help would be great.
Dear Carlos,
I am going to assume that you mean collections when you use the word “albums.” Albums are a very similar feature found in iPhoto or iTunes. Semantics aside, I believe that you are asking where did my Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Flags (the Pick / Reject markers) go?
Flags are not one of my favorite feature of Lightroom. I turn them off in my beginner classes and I suggest that most users should avoid using them. Colored labels and star ratings serve the same purpose but operate in a much more predictable way. Star ratings and colored labels are metadata fields. These marking systems can be stored within each file’s XMP metadata block which means that they are visible from program to program and from place to place within Lightroom.
When I write “place to place within Lightroom” I mean within a single folder, within a collection, or in the all photos grid display. If you add star ratings, or colored labels, these markings will be visible no matter where you are within your catalog. Pick flags though are not a metadata field. They are a private marking system that is stored only at the Lightroom catalog level. They cannot be seen in other programs because these markings are never passed down to the file’s XMP block.
Many users find this frustrating but things get worse. Not only are the flags a private marking which exists only within your Lightroom catalog but the flags do not cross boundaries between collections. A file can be marked as a pick in a folder, or in the all photographs view, but when viewed within a collection it will not display its pick flag. Likewise, marking a photo with a reject flag while in a collection will not mark it as a reject when viewed outside of the collection. To make things terribly confusing a single photo could be marked as a pick in one collection, marked as a reject in another, and carry no flag marking at all when viewed at the folder level!
I suspect that this is what has happened to you. Your flags are missing either because you are not in the same catalog that you were in when you originally assigned the flag rating, or you assigned your flags at the folder / all photos level and are now in a collection. This is all horribly frustrating for novice users and again it is easily avoided if you stick to the star ratings and colored labels instead of the flags.
–
David Marx
I have put all my LR files from LR to my external drive. Now I am copying each dated file to a dvd and then throwing the original in the trash to get it off of my computer. My problems are:
1. None of my collections of in LR
2. None of my original presets are in LR, only those that came with LR3.
HELP please!!
Karin
Dear Karin Kelly Burns,
Collections are stored at the catalog level only. Collections, pick flags, and virtual copies are all catalog features. None of these features are stored within a file’s metadata which means that you cannot move these features simply by importing your images. Moving collections from catalog to catalog requires you to use the “File >Import from Catalog” option. This isn’t a hard process but the choices inside this dialog are confusing and limited.
Moving your presets from catalog to catalog might be easier for you. Your presets are all stored inside of a folder named “Lightroom Settings.” This folder is either a sub-folder inside of your Lightroom Catalog folder or it lives deep inside your user account. In our video tutorials, and workshops, we advocate storing presets at the catalog level because it makes them easier to backup and move from machine to machine.
If you missed this step way back when you started using Lightroom 2 then you will need to track down your Lightroom Settings folder. Try locating this folder by going into the Lightroom Preferences Menu > Presets > Show Lightroom Presets Folder. Copy all of these folders into the settings folder for your new catalog and you should be all set.
–
David Marx
P.S. Don’t forget to empty the trash once you have archived all of your old images using the DVDs. Until you empty the trash, or recycle bin, all of your old files are still on your internal hard drive!
Dear David,
Thanks for the great tutorials, very detailed and well explained!
I formated a new HD as you advised, I imported the pics from the “Pictures” folder of the internal to the external HD, but then something strange happened: only the pictures that were in the Pictures folder and that were not already in the catalogue moved to the external HD.
The problem now is that I can’t use the import menu to move the pics from my internal HD (that are already in the catalogue) to the external hard drive, as it says they already were imported.
So the solution I found is to drag and drop the folders from int to ext HD using the LR3 library. The problem is that some of the folders were partially imported to LR:
To clarify:
INT HD:
>User
>>Pictures
>>>Snow (500 pics)
>>>>best of (previously not in the catalogue)
EXT HD:
>Pictures go here
>>Snow (empty)
>>>best of (10 pics after the importation)
So if I just drag and drop the folder Snow, it will say there is already an existing folder with this name.
And of course, I have 25000 Pics to transfer so the manual folder drag and drop is not the most effective
Is there a clever way to solve this mess?
Many thanks in advance,
Emilien
PS: greetings from France!
Dear Emilien,
The trouble that you are running into is that Lightroom is preventing you from importing the same files twice. Basically, the prevent duplicates is making your life difficult because you have imported some but not all of the images in any folder plus its sub-folders. Now you have two options. One choice is to right-click on the parent level folder, in your Lightroom Library folders panel, and use the “Synchronize Folder” option. This will tell Lightroom to scan this folder and all of its sub-folders and to show you all of the images that live in these folders but that are not part of your current index.
The other choice is to start over.*** If I were in your shoes I would start with a new Lightroom Catalog on my properly formatted external drive and then I would create a parent level “Photos Go Here” type folder. Our articles on my photo storage system and on getting started right with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 might help you with this process.
Once I had a new catalog and a parent folder on my external disk I would use Lightroom’s import and move option to get all of the photos from your internal disk to the external in a single pass. This might take a little while but it will insure that every photo gets stored on the external disk and that every image is added into your index. If needed, I would do this again to get all of the photos that you have already moved over to the external.
With just a few clicks of the mouse you could have everything into a nice new Lightroom catalog without any frustration and you would also know that all of your files now live on the right drive. You could also take this opportunity to use Lightroom to build better file names and to apply your copyright / contact info using a metadata preset on import.
***Please don’t start over if you have not already saved your work into each and every file’s metadata or if you have created lots of pick flags, virtual copies, or collections.
Best of luck,
David Marx
@KristinMoore It’s a little late I know, but here is a video by Julieanne Kost that may be helpful…
http://tv.adobe.com/watch/the-complete-picture-with-julieanne-kost/questions-about-lightroom-and-photo-management/
Re my previous append, the approach of moving the files from the directory on internal drive to the directory of the same name on the external drive and using Lightroom to locate the missing photo by clicking on the question mark of the photo in the old location and manually pointing to the new location is working. I think I was too tired when I tried it before and wasn’t looking in the right place to see what was going on. It’s still quite tedious and I’d love an easier way, but this is getting it done.
As a LR newbie, I have a real mess. (I wish I’d found this website before I started!) I now have photos in my catalog both on my internal hard drive as well as my external hard drive. Worse, some of the directories on the internal hard drive have the same name as those that already exist on the external drive. So, while I’ve discovered how to move entire directories of previously cataloged photos within the Lightroom Library module simply by dragging the folder from internal to external, I haven’t yet figured out how to move individual photos from folder 2010-05-01 on the internal drive to folder 2010-05-01 on the external drive since they’re already cataloged — at least not without removing them from the catalog, moving them in Finder, then reimporting. I’d like to believe there’s an easier way. Moving in Finder and then having LR find the missing photos didn’t seem to work. If there were just a few of these, it wouldn’t be a problem, but… Any suggestions are most welcome!
Dear Jack,
Lightroom is not a network ready program regardless of version :< I feel your pain too and there are other programs out there for image management that can do this but currently Lightroom cannot.
You can however work with images that are stored over a network but your catalog must be stored on a local disk. You can use software like dropbox to synchronize your catalog from computer to computer across a network though but again the Lightroom catalog itself (your .lrcat file) must be stored on a local disk. See http://lightroom-blog.com/2010/08/more-dropbox-tips.html for more info on using dropbox.
I do not know of any plans to make future versions of Lightroom more network friendly. This doesn't mean that they won't, or that the folks at Adobe aren't working on this right now, but so far I have not seen any public statements indicating that they intend to re-write the entire program so that it will work on all the complicated varieties of networks that one could create.
–
David
David,
Great articles on using external drives!
I am trying to setup an external drive and backup system using the Seagate GoFlex Net that allows hard drives to be accessed through the wireless or wired router. I have two computers (PCs), a desktop and a laptop. The pictures store well on the shared drives, but LR 2 (in my case, waiting to upgrade) still doesn’t allow sharing a catalog on a net setup like this. Does LR 3 allow this, and if not is this in the future plan for Adobe?
Thanks, again, Jack
Dear David:
I am a new to Lightroom user who did not have the benefit of your instruction prior to starting up Lightroom, so now my harddrive is full and creating issues.
I followed the tutorial on moving files to an external drive and creating a new catalogue.
As far as I can tell all of the image files have moved but I am only seeing 7500 +/- thumbnails for 11700 +/- images in the catalogue.
I have tried selecting the subfolders where the images reside and tried “add”ing them to the catalogue to no avail.
I would appreciate any thoughts.
Iris
Dear Iris Jackson,
I am not sure that I completely understand your question. In the Lightroom Library module what happens if you switch to the Grid view (keyboard shortcut is the letter G), select the “All Photographs” option in the Catalog Panel on the left sidebar, and then turn off all your filters? Now can you see all 11700 thumbnails? Is it the thumbnails that are missing or the images themselves? How many images did you have in your Lightroom index before you started moving things around?
Rather than adding in sub-folders that I suspect are already in your Lightroom index try this:
1. Right-click on one of your folder names within the folders panel inside of the Library module. Press the “Add Parent Folder” button. In my world, this adds the “Photos Go Here” folder that I created as the container for all of my image sub-folders. For you this might add something like “Pictures” or “My Pictures” to the top of the folder hierarchy.
2. Now right-click on this top-level folder (the one that we just added) and now use the “Synchronize” button. This may take a while but it tells Lightroom to check through every folder and to add in any image that it finds along this path that is not currently in your index.
If this doesn’t solve your troubles please write me back and let me know whether it’s the thumbnails that are missing or the actual images.
–
David
In my workshops I often preach that “all of the secrets to success in life are in the right-click!”
Dear Fearnandel,
You might find this plugin from Jeffery Freidl useful. It might, just might, allow to extract the jpeg previews from the Lightroom Preview Cache for your lost raw files. See Extract Cached Image Previews Lightroom Plugin.
best of luck,
David
Hi David,
A million thanks for your time and expertise in LR. I’m writing because I’ve recently moved all my photos to an external drive and then imported them into LR3. Everything went fine except that for each photo a .DAT file was created as well. Each .DAT file is exactly 8.4 MB. and is stored loose on my external drive. Did I do something wrong?
I lost my HD containing my pictures. I know that Lightroom wont allow you to export your picture if the raw is lost. But I can live even with the preview files within the LR Library. Where can i find this preview files?
Thanks,
- Fernandel
I guess I have my LR set up a little differently and was wondering how to fix it. This tutorial didn’t really address it, although the title seemed as if it would.
I am a mac user, and I’m also super careful about storing multiple copies of my raw files. I keep all original RAW photos on an external drive.
My import process is as follows:
1. copy the RAW files from my compact flash card to my desktop/Internal MacintoshHD, then eject the compact flash card.
2. open LR and then COPY (to new location) the photos when importing to LR. The location right now is on my Macintosh HD, in Pictures, subfolder named “Working Raw Photos” and then subfolders within that, depending on the topic.
3. once the photos are copied, I take the RAW files and move them to my external HD.
4. the LR catalog is also saved on Macintosh HD, in Pictures, subfolder “Lightroom” and they are stored in there. The catalog backs up automatically when exiting LR to my external HD, where the RAW photos are stored.
5. After every new import and day of work on the photos, I copy my “Working Raw Photos” to the external HD to back it up.
Questions
1. Does the backup in item 5 work? meaning, should my Macintosh HD fail, could I link LR to that Working Raw Folder on my external HD, as well as the catalog that is backed up there?
2. If I wanted to change everything and instead have all my LR photos stored on the external drive (rather than my Macintosh drive), how do I move the catalog and that “Working Raw File” to the external drive? I thought this tutorial addressed this second question, but it didn’t seem to.
Thanks!
Following up on what David Pascaoe said, I tried moving my catalog file onto my Drobo (via Firewire 800) for added redundancy. It slowed everything down to a crawl. I moved the catalog back to the internal drive (iMac) and everything got back up to speed. I believe that Time Machine takes care of backing up the catalog. I do have the luxury of having Lightroom on my Macbook Pro which only gets used on location. The DNGs get migrated over to the iMac/Drobo set-up as soon as I can and as soon as I’ve done one more set of back-ups the file gets expunged from the LR catalog on my laptop. It keeps things running lean and one client doesn’t need to see images from other clients’ shoots. If I didn’t have two computers I could really see the rationale behind keeping everything at the studio. As David Marx said, there is no right answer.
Dear Daniel,
I like your strategy and it is one that lot’s of professionals use but it has one potential pitfall. Your system is great up until the moment when you want to put together a portfolio, a gallery show, or a new website that features ALL of your best images. To find all of your best images you need to search multiple catalogs and you cannot use a collection to tie all of your assets together.
There are no rights and wrongs here– only options. You are absolutely right that using multiple catalogs makes separating one job from another easier but this simplicity will burn you when you are working on a project that spans multiple jobs. In the end though we absolutely agree on one thing: “Give it a try and see what works best for you.”
–
David
I come from one catalog for all my images (150’000+) to annual catalogs to catalogs per job. That’s the best thing I ever changed in my workflow! Everything gets faster and easier to handle. I store all DNG’s and the catalog in one folder per job. If I have to go for a trip and want to work on the road, I just grab this folder (copy it to an external drive) and have everything I need. Back home I only have to copy the folder back to my internal harddrive. No need to export a selection of images from the main catalog and reimporting into the catalog later again. Which is not only time consuming (even on a Mac Pro for jobs with 2000+ images), but also error-prone in my experience.
Give it a try and see what works best for you.
Thanks for your compliment, Mike! David has really been cranking out the Lightroom 3 posts!
-Scott
I just waned to say thank you for writing this post! I really enjoy reading through all of the posts on this site…fantastic information. Keep up the great work!
Dear Bob,
I think that you missed a couple of steps. (I am assuming here that you had actually keyworded all of these images.) First, did you save all of your metadata down to file level before changing catalogs? If so then your keywords should still be there. If not then you probably want to relaunch the old beta catalog and do so either through the preferences panel or by selecting all your files and going Metadata > Save Metadata to File. Once saved your old keywords should be back though you may have to select all of your images and go Metada > Read Metadata from files.
Restoring the factory default print presets, and all of the other types of presets, is easy. Just go to the Preferences Menu > Presets Tab > and click everyone of the restore buttons. Don’t let the “are you sure” warnings scare you. If you had built your own presets / templates you need to find them and move them into the appropriate folder within the Lightroom Settings folder that is associated with your new catalog. See Getting Started Right: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3′s Critical Preference Menus for more details.
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David Marx
David,
Great tutorials I have been looking for something like this since Lightroom 3 was available. My problem is before I installed LR3 I was using Beta 2. I used the internal HD picture folder.(the default)
Now with LR3 I Made the 2 folders(my photos and catalog) on external HD.
I called Adobe tech support they took over my computer with my permission. Now I have a mess: I have no presets under print module /my presets. Under collections I have 2090 images without keywords. Any help would be great. Bob
Dear David,
As far as I know Adobe has no official position on this issue. I would go further and suggest that intentionally designed Lightroom so that either setup– an internal or an external catalog–is possible because their is no single right configuration. Where you store your catalog and your images is an issue that every professional photographer faces and there is no single solution.
I am a big advocate of external hard drive storage because my sole computer is a MacBook Pro laptop whose internal hard drive could never store my 40,000 images. Likewise, most of clients and students are primarily laptop users. If I had a Mac Pro tower and could load it up with four high-performance internal hard drives I might have a very different opinion….
It is true that an external hard drive could slow things down but if you get the right drive and use the right connection then the performance can be as good or better than what one would experience using an internal disk. See our post on Recommended External Hard Drives for more details.
Thanks for the good questions.
–
David
Doesn’t Adobe suggest that you keep the catalog on an internal drive ? Having it on an external drive will slow LR down too won’t it ?
davidp.