Extracting Previews from LR catalog using "ExtractPreviews.lua" script

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
September 6, 2023
3 replies
976 views

I had an external hard drive go belly up; this was the drive I had all my photos stored on. Long story, I won't share all that here but I asked in a webinar yesterday about getting the thumbnails out of my catalog and was presented with a link that took me to a page where I could download the "ExtractPreviews.lua" script. I installed this script in LR (following the directions on the page, pretty simple process there) I've run the script several times, each time I get to designate the folder I want the previews to be extracted to. It doesn't seem to be working as I only see 2 previews in the folder I designated (there should be 249).

As the script runs, I get the message it's "writing best available preview". Why am I only getting 2 of the pics (previews)? I'm assuming I'll have to re-import the pictures? Any further suggestions?

Windows

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JohanElzenga

Community Expert

"I'm assuming I'll have to re-import the pictures?"

Does that mean you still have a backup of them? If so, then you do not need to extract previews at all. All you need to do is 'reconnect' the Lightroom catalog to these images (no, not reimport them!!), which is easy to do and something we can help you with.

-- Johan W. Elzenga

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barnsharkAuthor

Participant

No, I don't still have the pictures, sure wish I did. That would make it sooooo easy. No, I see the thumbnails when I'm in Lightroom Classic but they all have the "missing photo" exclamation point. I was told about the script to extract the previews; that same person told me I would (after extraction) be able to re-import those "photos". Maybe I was told wrong on that. Appreciate your input and everyone's who has responded. I think I am out of luck, but just not ready to totally give up yet

JohanElzenga

Community Expert

What that person meant was that you could import the extracted preview, so you would get a JPEG copy of the missing photo. That is better than nothing at all. However, if there is no preview then there is nothing to extract. Lightroom discards 'out-of-date' previews nowadays, which explains why you may not have previews for each photo.

-- Johan W. Elzenga

Rob_Cullen

Community Expert

If, in the LrC Library grid view, you see only two preview thumbnails in a folder then that is all you can 'extract'.

Re-importing the pictures is not possible unless you have the original camera files.

Without visible previews and the original photo files I am sorry to say you are so out of options to recover photos.

Regards. My System: Windows-11, Lightroom-Classic 15.3, Photoshop 27.5, ACR 18.3, Lightroom 9.3, Lr-iOS 10.4.0, Bridge 16.0.3 .

Suzanne Mathia

Community Expert

heres another plug in you can try to see if you get a different result preview-extraction

.....Suzanne Mathia

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barnsharkAuthor

Participant

I get the '404 Page not found' error. Maybe just past the link in your response??

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