Managing Folders with thousands of pics

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
June 25, 2019
3 replies
165 views

Hello everyone,

my second post. I usually try to find answers on YouTube first, then come here and search for keywords. In this case however I didnt find an answwer so I have to ask:

Currently I have about 100k pictures lying on my NAS storage. They are all organized in folder structures that I thought of over the years. As you can imagine, the structure is highly inefficient and unprofessional. Since I installed Lightroom Classic I wanted to step this up by reorganizing by date- as I learned that most experienced users do it this way. Since I can now add tags to pictures this makes a whole lot of sense!

I am unsure how to begin though, as some of the folders carry thousands of loose pics. Rearranging in LR Classic is crucial as to ensure that the programm knows where the pictures will be located in the future. However, I think I also saw a Youtube video where someone said, that with large amounts of data, it makes more sense to do it in Windows Explorer.

The other issue is: how do I even dissolve a folder containing thousands of pics? Do I just go "select all", cut and paste somewhere else in LR, then delete the leftover empty folder, or is there a better way? I really want to rearrange everything by date.

If anyone has something to read about this, or a video tutorial I would be very gratefull!

Regards, Chris

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Just Shoot Me

Legend

I agree, leave old stuff as is (or do all your reorganizing before you import into LR) and place new images into dated folders.

dj_paige

Legend

DokwoN wrote
I am unsure how to begin though, as some of the folders carry thousands of loose pics. Rearranging in LR Classic is crucial as to ensure that the programm knows where the pictures will be located in the future.

The problem with this statement is that you can leave the photos where they are. Re-arranging is not a necessary step. This is a mistake that many beginners make, they assume that organizing into nice neat folders is a necessary step, that folder location still has value, and so they put time and effort into getting their folders set up properly rather than using more powerful tools like keywords and other metadata to organize and search — in other words, embrace the power of Lightroom and its tools, rather than using old tools like folders that were never really meant as a photographic organizing system. Put new photos into folders by capture date, this is a Lightroom default and takes no effort on the part of the user.

Now, some people will disagree, but I am saying that re-arranging into nice neat folder is not a necessary step. Some people still do the folder re-organizing, which is fine if they feel it is worth it; however I get no real benefit and I do not recommend this, and apparently I am in agreement with Mr. Beardsworth.