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Matthieu FR
Matthieu FR
Participant
May 3, 2026
Question

Lightroom Classique 15.3 - Unable to import keywords from CSV file

  • May 3, 2026
  • 1 reply
  • 27 views

Hello,

 

I’m using Adobe Lightroom Classic 15.3 (202604090927-8f3672ed) and i can’t import keywords from CSV file.

 

Context : I have a main catalog, made an export of photos on a another catalog to work in vacations and made an export of my keywords (cvs file). When i import thekeywords list on the new catalog, LR refuse and tell me “Error, the file cannot be imported, because it contains corrupted data.”.

 

I have reduced the CSV file to the smallest part possible to be sure it wasn’t having non ASCII caracters and with a very simple file like this one… it still refuse to import.

 

Example : File LR.CSV

Include On Export,Export Containing Keywords,Export Synonyms,Person Type Keyword,
N,N,N,N,Top - OK
"Y,Y,Y,N,    Test LR"
"Y,Y,Y,N,    Test LR2"

 

It’s seem to be a bug of a function not working that i can reproduce easily.

 

Matt

      1 reply

      johnrellis
      johnrellis
      Legend
      May 3, 2026

      [View this post in your web browser. It contains formatting and images that don't appear in email.]

       

      The last two lines of what you posted start and end with the “ character. In CSV files, that’s a way of indicating what occurs between quotes should be considered a single field.

       

      Also note that if you want the second and third keywords to be children of the first, then you need to precede their names with a tab character to indicate their level in the hiearchy. (That may have been in your original file and the forum translated them to spaces.)

       

      I’ve attached a working .csv file of your example.

      Matthieu FR
      Matthieu FRAuthor
      Participant
      May 3, 2026

      Hello John,

       

      Thank for your reply !

       

      The CSV file have been altered by Microsoft Excel i used, but i have made additional tests and i have found the problem !

       

      I have two keywords with comma inside ! Lightroom can export them in a file with the correct syntax but when i import the file to a new catalog it crash due to the comma.

       

      If i replace them, i don’t have longer problem.

       

      Maybe Adobe should include a warning to avoid such problems to users or use a special way to encode comma when it is inside a keyword.

       

      Regards

       

      Matthieu

      johnrellis
      johnrellis
      Legend
      May 4, 2026

      Glad you identified the underlying problem.

       

      There are at least a couple places where LR fails to check for the presence of illegal characters in keywords: in the Import Keywords command and importing metadata from photos that contain keywords.

      Lots of people have tripped over the lack of intelligible error messages, but no one has posted a detailed bug report (including precise step-by-step instructions making it easy for Adobe to reproduce) or a feature request.

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