Can't use the ADD option during the Importing process

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Next troubleshooting steps:

1. Make sure you've granted Full Disk Access to LR:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/quick-tips-how-to-give-full-disk-access-to-lightroom-classic-on-macos/m-p/12913413

2. If that doesn't help, then:

a. Start the Disk Utility app.

b. In the left column, find one of the problem external drives and note the exact volume name, e.g.

c. Start the Terminal app.

d. Type this command:

diskutil info "Miscellaneous2"

replacing "Miscellaneous2" with the exact name of the volume from step b, with the exact case, including any spaces in the name and the double quotes.

e. Copy and paste the entire ouptut here.

(The Disk Utility's Get Info command doesn't provide all the required information, so don't bother doing that.)

Thanks for the technical description, however it doesn't really help me with the issue at hand. Is this an issue on the side of the OS or the program?

By @Dr3up

This is exactly what I was trying to explain. It is an issue of the OS, not of the program. What kind of external disk is it? MacOS Ventura obviously does not see every external disk as a removable, so Lightroom can certainly work with external disks in MacOS Ventura too. I do exactly that every day.

Thanks for the technical description, however it doesn't really help me with the issue at hand. Is this an issue on the side of the OS or the program? I rely on having an external HDD to do all my edits.

This sounds like MacOS Ventura sees these external drives as removable drives. Lightroom does not allow you to 'add' images from a removable drive to the catalog, only to 'copy' them to another destination and import them from there. This is a precaution so you do not lose images by adding them to the catalog but keeping them on a memory card, for example. If you could do that by mistake, then you would lose the images when you formatted the card again.