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Post edited 1:04 pm – November 6, 2010 by davem

Dear Michael Sherman,

Your logic is strong but you are forgetting that Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is an indexing program.  Lightroom creates a database and each photo that you add into your catalog is a reference point.  You moved your catalog from the internal drive to the external which is excellent but now you are asking the program to create new reference points for file's that are already in your index!

This is why the previews are all dimmed and the file's are not copying when you try to use Lightroom's import feature. These methods are failing you because these files are already in your index.  So now you have two choices:  1.  You can move the files / folders from one disk to another from within Adobe Photoshop Lightroom's Folder Panel or 2. You could move the folder's yourself using the Finder and then reconnect them in your index. 

Option 1 is easier but it may be more time consuming.  Option 2 is quicker but is only advised if your fiolders all live inside of a parent folder and if you have already added that folder into the drill down within the Folders Panel.  Check out our tutorial on moving the file's and then try the right-click add parent folder option.  If all of your folders are within a single parent then you could move the parent outside of Lightroom and then use the right-click Locate Missing Folder option to reconnect everything.  You might find this advice on moving the parent folder then reconnecting it to your Lightroom index helpful too.

Best of luck and if you need more help please write us back,

David Marx