Participant

Question

ALL folders/albums and all photos inside have disappeared from Lightroom

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
October 19, 2022
4 replies
176 views

Hello,

I just recently did an update to Lightroom and upon opening it up this morning. I come to see all my folders/albums that were organized in Lightroom have completely disappeared. Where even "All Photos" says the number of photos inside is zero. There is nothing in deleted it’s like I opened up Lightroom for the very first time and never used it at all. I store all my files/photos locally onto a Synology 40TB server. So, space isn't an issue and I don't have to rely on the cloud filling up.

I have no idea what to do or how to get back all my albums and photos without reuploading them once again and reorganizing. I've tried reconnecting to the folder that is housing all my photos and restarted Lightroom, but to no avail. I've tried uploading new photos once reconnecting in hopes it would find the albums again but even that did not help. I'm not sure what to do and also how to prevent this from happening again? This was a huge loss of time if I'm unable to recover these albums and how would I prevent this from happening again? Any help or suggestion would greatly be appreciated! I'm on a Windows 10 PC and with all the latest software updates on all fronts.

Thank you!

This topic has been closed for replies.

JohanElzenga

Community Expert

Every time Lightroom Classic is updated to a new full versions and needs to upgrade the catalog, we see a few messages here of people who experience the same thing. All their photos seem to be lost. It's like Lightroom Classic created a brand new catalog and that is exactly what happened.

Sometimes the preference info for the catalog location gets corrupted during the upgrade, so at launch Lightroom Classic will look for a catalog in the default location with the default name. If it does not find it (because you use another name and/or another location), then it assumes this is the launch after a new installation and so it creates a new catalog without asking.

Usually this also means that looking for catalogs in the 'Open Recent' menu will be useless. Lightroom didn't find any recent catalogs, that is why it started a brand new one. So you have to find the recent catalog yourself and open it in Lightroon either via 'Open - Catalog' or by double clicking on the catalog file.

-- Johan W. Elzenga

GoldingD

Legend

I come to see all my folders/albums that were organized in Lightroom have completely disappeared

Album or Catalog?

Album is a Lightroom Ecosystem (Cloud Based) term. Lr uses an album on the cloud

Lightroom Classic uses a catalog on your hard drive, it is a database, it is not referred to as an album.

What exact version of Lr or LrC/? LrC is now v12

Moving on for now

As you mentioned Folders, and All Photos, I will assume LrC v12.

So, you would have run into LrC v12 upgrading your catalog.

Fine, but sometimes the upgrade fails to bring up the correct catalog (have never understand the why and/or who, probablu a corrupt preference file). Instead of starting LrC from the startup icon, use your OS file manager and navigate to the location your previous catalog is on, double click on it (.lrcat file), see what happens.

I see you have Windows, so:

V

VariunAuthor

Participant

Hi GoldingD,

I apperciate the reply and information! Also, my apolgies I didn't specify which version of Lightroom. I was using Lightroom (Cloud-Based Version 6.0) and I think now that, that is in perspective that could be the issuse going on. I probably should have been using the Lightroom Classic in the first place and not the other Lightroom CC. I'm still pretty new to these applications and just thought ah, classic I should probably use the "newer" version so to speak.

I'm going to try downloading classic and reupload all of my local photos and see if I run into any issues after that. I'll move away from Lightroom CC for the time being. Still not sure what would have caused it working from one day and then to be wiped out the next. Espcially since I had all photos stored locally. Once again thank you very much for all your information you provided I will keep a note of this if I end up having this issue in LrC.

GoldingD

Legend

Cloud-Based Version 6.0

Ok ,as I think of Lr Ecosystem (Cloud Based) as Lr POS, I do not use it, and as such have no idea. My reply above probably not at all relevant to this discussion.

J

Jao vdL

Community Expert

Are you using the normal version of Lighroom called Lightroom Classic or the cloud based version called just "Lightroom"? If the former, go to the file menu and look for "open recent" and look for your catalpg file. If the latter, open a browser and browse to https://lightroom.adobe.com and log in with your adobe ID. Check if your images are there.

V

VariunAuthor

Participant

Hi Jao vdL,

I appreciate the reply and information and also my apologies for not specifying which version I am on. I am on Lightroom CC v6.0. I checked online and yeah even there nothing is showing, so something funky is going on. I see now I probably should have been using Lightroom Classic overall with these big projects I am working on for work.

kglad

Community Expert

in the future, to find the best place to post your message, use the list here, https://community.adobe.com/

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