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Gracehoper
Gracehoper
Known Participant
February 7, 2026
Answered

Using LR5 Classic, in Windows 7 Explorer, cannot search keywords stored on videos

  • February 7, 2026
  • 1 reply
  • 52 views

Hi All,

In LR5 I have added keywords to photos as well as videos.

In Windows Explorer detail view I can select “Tags” as a column and see and search on the keywords for image files. But this does not seem to work for video.

(I can search videos via keywords inside LR5.)

Is it a limitation of some kind? Or is there something I’m missing?

Thank you for any suggestions.  

    Correct answer johnrellis

    Elaborating on dj_paige’s reply, LR has never known how to write changed metadata back to video files.  You could try the Video Metadata plugin, which writes metadata back to video files.

    1 reply

    dj_paige
    dj_paige
    Legend
    February 7, 2026

    I don’t think keywords for videos transfer to the actual video files where the operating system can find them. 

    johnrellis
    johnrellisCorrect answer
    Legend
    February 8, 2026

    Elaborating on dj_paige’s reply, LR has never known how to write changed metadata back to video files.  You could try the Video Metadata plugin, which writes metadata back to video files.

      Gracehoper
      GracehoperAuthor
      Known Participant
      February 8, 2026

      @Gracehoper Thank you, John -- I wondered if that was the limitation.

      I won’t go for the plugin though.

      The final aim is to export all photos and videos since 2011 related to “Family” (a keyword) into an external drive keeping the existing folder names and structure.

      For photos, it works to select based on keyword then export them to the original folder with “FFam” suffix in filename. Then use Windows’ robocopy  to copy “FFam” files to another drive with “/S” to duplicate the folder structure. And later delete “FFam” photos from the catalogue.

      For videos, I want to avoid using that method since export is so slow and I don’t need them rendered (obviously, LR5 does not support editing them anyway).

      So I’m still thinking how I might copy videos. 

      EDIT: I just noticed that if I export video unedited then there is no delay. So, cumbersome as this process seems, it does help export to same folder names in a different drive. 

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