Issues with re-creating my catalog

Question

My computer forced a re-install of Windows 11 when it froze. I had my Lightroom Classic backup file on the hard drive and it seems it was erased. I store my photos on an external drive. All of my photos were synced previously. I had to re-install Lightroom Classic and it was making me add all of my photos again. Is there a way to just download my catalog from the Cloud? When I re-added my photos and it runs sync, it is duplicating my photos in Lightroom Classic desktop. It is also stacking some of my photos now and some of my photos are missing but when I look at my external hard drive they are there. I "imported" all of my photos but some are missing . When I try to add those missing files, it tells me that they are already imported. I have been trying to get things straightened out for a week. I am at a loss on what to do to fix this. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Sean McCormack · Answer

If the backup file is gone as well then it's tough. Generally you want the backup catalog in a different location for exactly what's happened here.

If Lightroom says the files are imported, they are there, just perhaps not at the location you're expecting them to be.

What I would have tried is making the new catalog the same name as the original catalog and perhaps the sync would connect when photos are at the same location as they were in the original catalog. It's just guessing though. I've rename backup catalogs before and had them seemlessly replace the original, but they were essentially the full catalog already. Your catalog isn't in the cloud, just Smart Preview versions of the files.

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