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Timothy.Spear
Timothy.Spear
Inspiring
July 9, 2021
Answered

Add photos, but automatically add folder names

  • July 9, 2021
  • 1 reply
  • 627 views

I have a couple of large "legacy" folder structures of images I want to merge into Cloudy.

The images are stored in foldeers that have meaning, e.g. they have are organized first by year, then season/event/trip and then location.

Importing each folder one at a time, and manually copy/pasting the information into Cloudy will be extremely time consuming and painful. What makes it more challanging is I already have some of the images imported, but I did not add the meta-data from the folder structures. So I want to apply the meta-data to the existing image.

 

So far, I have considered writing a script to use exiftool to add the folder names as keywords. Export the existing images which mught be duplicates (these are all unedited so no loss), delete the existing ones, import the newly keyworded images, then re-import the exported images so I make sure nothing is lost.

But this seems like a fair amount of work.

 

Anyone have a better solution?

 

Note: I still have Classic if someone has a solution using this as an ingestion tool, but I am planning to drop Classic soon.

 

Tim

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Jim Wilde

A new catalog is cleaner.....but of course it'll want to download the entire contents of your cloud library, so if you use that approach make sure you set the download location to an external drive (Classic preferences>Lightroom Sync tab) before you enable sync in the catalog.

1 reply

Jim Wilde
Community Expert
Jim WildeCommunity Expert
Community Expert
July 9, 2021

Tim, there's one thing you could try:

 

1. Import the folders into the synced Classic catalog.

2. Use the feature in the Folders panel to replicate the folders as collections (basically right-click on a top level folder, select "Create Collection Set "folder name"....") which should create a collection set named the same as the folder, with collections below with the same name as the sub-folders, and with the same image content.

3. Sync the collections, to put SPs in the cloud.

4. Import the same set of folders into Lightroom, which should replace the SPs in the cloud with the originals.

5. Manually create the Collections Set(s) equivalent (Folders) in Lightroom.

 

In theory that should work, but suggest you try it on a small set first.

    Timothy.Spear
    Timothy.SpearAuthor
    Inspiring
    July 9, 2021

    Jim,

    I like that approach. Easier than me wrighting a script or relearning exiftool.

     

    Since I "migrated" my Classic already. And I have lots of new edits and images already loaded in Cloudy.

    Is there any value in doing this in a new empty catalog in Classic? In Classic, I currently have sync disabled since I migrated.

     

    One issue I have not thought through, Cloudy uses hash values of the images to determine duplicates. Clssic uses filename, capture date and a few other things. I wonder how deplicates will work in this case, because I know we have some. Time to experiment! I know what I will be doing tonight.

     

    Tim

    Jim Wilde
    Community Expert
    Jim WildeCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
    Community Expert
    July 9, 2021

    A new catalog is cleaner.....but of course it'll want to download the entire contents of your cloud library, so if you use that approach make sure you set the download location to an external drive (Classic preferences>Lightroom Sync tab) before you enable sync in the catalog.

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