Lightroom is not showing all the pictures in a folder

Hi, I too have the same problem. I last used Lightroom pre Covid and am now able to again start post processing my photos (I know its been awhile!). I shoot raw with Canon and am using Lightroom Classic (v15.4.1). I have saved raw photos from 2 weeks ago that I am trying to import into Lightroom, and Lightroom says there are no images in that folder. When I look in Windows Explorer all the photos are there. I have unchecked the ‘don’t import suspected duplicates’ box. 
My next step was to go to some raw files I had saved in February this year and again Lightroom doesn’t recognise any photos. 

Note that none of these photos would have previously been imported into Lightroom ie they’re not in previous LR catalogues.

Finally, I can see that Lightroom is not recognising ANY photos at all from my computer. 

Clearly Lightroom has had some updates between 2020 and now - is that the issue? If so, any suggestions on how to fix? Also, some of the folders I’m trying to import from have photos from my mobile as well (JPG) - although that shouldn’t be an issue as I can normally highlight or select with a tick box which photos I want to import. 

Does anyone have any tips for me? Please? All tips gratefully accepted and appreciated. 

hello all! thank you all for the efforts here... although I didn't find a solution for the problem. nevertheless, trying all that you sugested over and over again, I did find an odd but perfect after all solution :)) here it is, beginning with a description of the problem:

I shoot film, I "scan" films with a digital camera, I use Lightroom Classic, last version, on a 2021 Macbook Pro. I use stacks to emphasize the film rolls. I keep photos organized on years and days. On the left panel, near the folder "2025-01-18", was written "116", so I should've found 116 photos with that folder selected... only I didn't. 82 photos were shown. With NO FILTERS active whatsoever, with ALL STACKS EXPEANDED. If I selected "All photos" on the left panel, all stacks extended, I couldn't find the missing photos by filename, although in the import module said they were already imported. all files were in the right folder on the disk.

What I did?

1. I renamed one of the files Lightroom didn't show, in Finder, on the disk

2. Library > Find All Missing Photos (BANG! here it was!)

3. Right click on it, then "Go to Folder in Library"

4. Renamed the original file back to the original name in Finder

5. Returned to that folder and... all photos were there again.

Well, wow, how's that for a solution...?

Applicable today in 2025, thanks~

Cntrl + L

Maybe too late for this response but I had the same problem and this solution worked for me:

In the Import screen, just untick the "Don't Import Suspected Duplicates" box.

Missing photos will show up . 

Then you can import them as usual and they will show in the Library folder.

I am many years in the future having this same issue. Before anyone suggests it, I did try effectively ALL other suggestions I saw in the replies (and replies to replies) in this thread. The ONLY thing that I got to work for me was to move over all my photos to a brand new folder and import again. Lightroom treated them as new photos and it worked that time. I have no idea why it didn't work the first time, I changed nothing about my importing settings, but at least I eventually got it to work. Sharing in case this is another idea that might help someone else.

Very late but i ran into the same problem and i found a quick solution, just highlight all the missing images and rename them. i typed in 1 and then clicked enter and it renamed all of the images in sequence and when i syynchronized the folder, all of my images appeared.

For me it came down to "turn off do not import suspected duplicates".  It was a file handling option located in the top right portion of Lightroom 10.3.

I'm glad to see this thread is still active since it is happening to me also and I am rather ticked off about it, being in the middle of going through all my photos (50K+) and sorting them and deleting the trash. I'm running the latest versions of Lightroom Classic, Photoshop and Bridge on Mac OS 10.14.6 on a Mac Pro with 48GB RAM, 8GB VRAM, and all SSD. In Bridge my photos are arranged by year, with subfolders named for the date imported using Nikon Transfer 2, i.e., 2019 (folder) > 190101(subfolder) and so on. I simply imported the entire drive containing those folders into Lightoom. Just now, I discover that somehow some of the folders that are 2019 subfolders are in the 2020 folder in Lightroom, not in Bridge—but still exist in the 2019 folder but are empty. I did not import using "Copy," simply Add - add photos to catalog without moving them. How they got into the 2020 folder is a mystery but like others here there is no easy way to get them back into the proper folder. Frankly, I've had so many issues with Lightroom and Photoshop lately I'm about ready to jump ship even though I have another year of my subscription left. Yeah, be kind and respectful to Adobe. Pay your money and take your chances.

I am experiencing the same problems as tonymuffin and Jim_Air.  I too have had several thousand images shown in the Catalogue up until a few days ago.  However, at the moment I have all the separate folders in Lr still shown,  but Lr tells me there are no images in these folders.  Do I have to import them all again?  If so can I do it by say folder or some higher system?

Fortunately all the folders and images are still shown on my D Drive and a separate copy on my G Drive.

Please can someone tell me what needs to be done?

Thanks

jhcrabs

I have a similar situation where I have two folders 5/12/12  one in 2012 and 1 in 2013. When I try to move the ones from 2013 to the folder in 2012 it says they are already there and it won't allow me to. They are not showing however, nor can I  move them in any other way- there are also a bunch in my hard drive lightroom folder for that date that are in neither 5/12/12 folder that are not showing via Lightroom