File not found but it shows location in drive

Question

Hi &#128578;So a couple days ago I deleted a lot of pictures using LR on my external drive. I also deleted them in the trash on my mac. Now all of a sudden, when I select the imported Pictures which I obviouslx didn't delete on my external nor in LR and try to develop them it says "file not found" which is very strange because LR knows actually where the file is located on the drive and it also shows me in the finder in the order of my external drive when I hit "show in finder" and the other strange part is that when I want to import new pictures it says my external drive is empty? At first I thought it might be because I imported every picture of the folder but then I realized it doesn't even show me the multiple orders I got on my drive in the import section... did I do something wrong by deleting them in LR? Will delete the programm and re-install it solve the problem? Love to hear your answers &#128578;

JohanElzenga · Answer

The Lightroom catalog does not contain any physical image files. It's like an address book. It keeps all the file data and a preview, but the image file itself is located elsewhere on a hard disk, either your internal hard disk or an external one (you choose this on import). What you see in the catalog is not the original image, but that preview. So if you delete the original files from the hard disk, then they are lost and Lightroom won't be able to find them anymore. It's like a friend that moved to a different address, but didn't inform you so your address book still contains the old address. The same thing happens when you rename an image, or move it to a new location.

Reinstalling the application will obviously not solve this problem. You will have to restore the original images from a backup if you deleted them. If you moved or renamed them, then you will have to 'reconnect' the info in the catalog with the image: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/lightroom-photos-missing-fix/

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