Content of directory erased

Hi ​@Marcqc,

I completely understand your concern; losing 258 photos from a folder is a serious situation, and we want to help you get to the bottom of this.
 

Based on what you've shared so far, here are a few targeted things I'd recommend investigating:
 

1. Since you're running Norton on your Mac, this is a strong lead. Norton's real-time protection can sometimes interpret rapid file I/O (like Lightroom syncing settings across 258 photos simultaneously) as suspicious activity and quarantine or remove those files. Please check:

• Open Norton > Security > History, look for any entries around the time the photos disappeared

• Open Norton > Security > Quarantine, see if any of your image files ended up there

• Check if Norton's Data Protector or SafeWeb features were active

• Review Norton's "Data Protector" Configuration. This feature specifically monitors programs that rapidly modify large numbers of files, which is exactly what Lightroom does when syncing Develop settings to 258 photos. It may have flagged this activity as ransomware-like behavior.

If you find your files there, you can restore them. Going forward, I'd strongly recommend adding your photo folders and your Lightroom catalog folder to Norton's exclusion list (for both Real-Time Protection and Scans). Detailed steps here: https://support.norton.com/sp/en/us/home/current/solutions/v20240116192643877

2. Since this happened on your Mac Studio with M4 Max, the system may have logged what triggered the file removal:

• Open https://adobe.ly/4ze31l7 (Applications > Utilities > Console)

• Filter by the timeframe when the files disappeared

• Search for entries from "Norton" or "Lightroom" around that time

• If there are any entries, right-click on them, "reveal in finder," and share that log with us.

This could reveal whether Norton, macOS file protection, or another process was responsible.
 

3. After the restore, did you run a catalog integrity check to make sure the catalog properly reflects the current state of your files?

• Hold Option while launching Lightroom Classic

• Select Test Integrity on your catalog before opening it

A few additional questions that would help us investigate further:

• Copy & paste your System Info from LrC Help > System info here.

• Were the files stored on an internal SSD (the Mac Studio's built-in drive) or an external/network volume?

• Was Time Machine or any other backup running concurrently when the files vanished?

• Did you check the macOS Trash at the time?

• Has this happened more than once, or was this a single isolated incident?

We take data loss reports very seriously and want to determine whether a third-party interaction caused this or if there's something we need to investigate on our side.

Best,

Anshul Saini

When you were doing these edits by syncing settings, were you working in a Smart Collection?

Also, please specify if you were using Lightroom Classic (LrC icon) or Lightroom (Lr icon).

The backup is on an external drive

I use Norton antivirus

No external editor.

I was effectively syncing settings accross multiple photosle

Hi ​@Marcqc 

Sorry to hear about this, and I am glad you had backup files. To help us understand what may have caused the files to disappear, could you please share a few more details?

• Go to Help > System Info, then copy and paste the details here.
• What exactly were you doing in Lightroom immediately before the files disappeared?
• Were you syncing edits/settings across multiple photos when this happened?
• Are you using any third-party cleanup, disk optimization, antivirus, backup, or file-management tools that could automatically remove or relocate files?
• If this happens again, please let us know whether the files appear in the system Trash/Recycle Bin.

Also, were the missing photos stored on an internal drive, external drive, or network location? These details should help us narrow down what may have happened.