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robirdman1
Inspiring
February 7, 2026
Question

re-import files?

  • February 7, 2026
  • 2 replies
  • 44 views

I added a lot of metadata to files in LR.  I had intended to start the year using this before Bridge.  So I was going to then save the metadata to files, so that I would have it in Bridge.  I got a warning that it would overwrite and data there.  In the 1st folder I went ahead but in the 2nd I realized that I had already cropped a whole lot in Bridge and this would likely overwrite that work. I tested on a couple and they did lose the crop. I didn’t want to overwrite and lose all the crops.  So then I had to re-add all the metadata again (such as location, keywords, descriptions, etc) in Bridge.  Should I now re-import them back into LR to get the crops and metadata added in Bridge?

    2 replies

    J
    Community Expert
    Jao vdLCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    February 8, 2026

    You do not generally want to to reimport ever in Lightroom. It has a high potential of messing things up. What you do is synchronize a folder or read metadata from files. Synchronize will read metadata from files in addition to importing images that it doesn’t know about yet. DJ is right that you want to not mix these programs too much. It is possible if you religiously read and write metadata before switching between them but can lead to loss of edits if you don’t.

    dj_paige
    dj_paige
    Legend
    February 8, 2026

    I had intended to start the year using this before Bridge.

     

    It would be nice if Bridge and Lightroom Classic operated smoothly together. But they do not. So my advice to you is to pick one program, either Lightroom Classic or Bridge, and stop using the other program.

     

    As far as you current problem is concerned, I also advise you to stop thinking, now and in the future, that re-importing fixes problems. Re-importing does not fix problems. If you have Bridge all set up with crops and metadata now, that information is in the .xmp file for the photo, so in Lightroom Classic, just cause LrC to read the metadata from the .xmp file, by using the LrC menu command Metadata->Read metadata from files.

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