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AJV Media
AJV Media
Known Participant
December 18, 2016
Answered

"Find nearby missing photos" doesn't work!

  • December 18, 2016
  • 1 reply
  • 2065 views

Hello, all.

I have 2043 missing photos in my Lightroom catalog. I can't seem to re-link them all in a batch. I can do it one at a time by clicking on the exclamation point icon on the top left of each photo, but not all of them at the same time.

None of the photos have been renamed. When I try to locate one, I make sure the "find nearby missing photos" option is checked, but it only finds the one I clicked on. Do I have to do it one by one? That will take many hours that I don't have.

Working on a Windows 10 Desktop, with Lightroom catalog and all photos on an external hard drive.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer ManiacJoe

OK, when I plug the external drive (which contains the photos and the Lightroom library) into the Mac laptop, the reverse happens: The photos that were missing are now there, and the photos that were fine on the Windows PC are now missing.

How do I fix this? I have a client waiting for the photos by Monday and I can't spend hours re-linking over 2000 photos one by one. Help!


The Mac and Windows operating systems use different ways to ID a drive. Mac uses volume names; windows uses drive letters.

To Lightroom, they are just strings.

When you move the external drive from Mac to Windows (and vice versa) the folders are technically missing and need to be relocated based on the navigation of the OS you are currently using.

Pick the top-most folder of your folder tree, right-click, select "relocate" or "find missing", navigate to the current location, select OK. Lightroom will "correct" that top-most folder and everything under it.

You will need to do this each time you change operating systems.

1 reply

ManiacJoe
ManiacJoe
Inspiring
December 18, 2016

In the Library module, check the Folders panel for any missing folders "?".

If you have missing folders, you need to fix these first as Lightroom knows the difference between missing photos and photos in missing folders.

Adobe Lightroom - Find moved or missing files and folders

Check to see if Windows changed the drive letter on you. If it did, you can change it back. A better solution is to pick a drive letter of "L" or greater so that Windows will not change it on you.

AJV Media
AJV MediaAuthor
Known Participant
December 18, 2016

None of the folders are missing. And the drive is the same letter as before.

I used the external drive on a Mac laptop to import the photos into Lightroom, and that's when it got messed up. Don't know how to fix it now that I'm back on the desktop.

AJV Media
AJV MediaAuthor
Known Participant
December 18, 2016

OK, when I plug the external drive (which contains the photos and the Lightroom library) into the Mac laptop, the reverse happens: The photos that were missing are now there, and the photos that were fine on the Windows PC are now missing.

How do I fix this? I have a client waiting for the photos by Monday and I can't spend hours re-linking over 2000 photos one by one. Help!

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