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How can I find the path of the source files

Forum|Forum|6 months ago
December 30, 2025
2 replies
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I am looking at several Lightroom albums that have many files but I have not been able to find the documention that shows where the source file resides?

Please advise.

Correct answer Conrad_C

When I use the edit features from the web version of Lightroom,
By @EdRaponi

The web version will not show that option, because the web app is not permanently installed software and doesn’t provide for the full range of desktop app preferences, such as a local storage cache of originals. The option to specify a path for a local cache of originals is available only in the Lightroom full desktop app on Windows or macOS. (The phone/tablet apps let you set the size of the local cache, but not the location path.)

Additionally, looking at the attached picture you provided, I do not see where it provides a path (in Windows it would look like Drive:\Directory\Subdirectory\filename.filetype).

By @EdRaponi

The screen shot clearly shows a path under the “Storage location for originals” option Rikk was pointing you to, the last option in that panel. If you look at the last line there, it says:

/users/Flohr/Pictures/Lightroom Library.lrlibrary

That is a valid file path…on macOS, so we can guess that he is using a Mac. If that was a Windows PC, the path shown there would use the Windows path convention you mentioned.

However, the most important thing about this suggestion is to keep the big picture in mind:

In one of your other replies, you clarified that what you are looking for is the image path at time of import. That is not what this option does. The “Storage location for originals” setting is a path to a single Lightroom-built cache of originals downloaded from their source storage in the cloud, and that path is set by that option, having nothing to do with any of the different locations where the contained images were imported from. So this option wasn’t going to give you the answer you wanted anyway.

Rikk Flohr_Photography

That information is found in your Edit>Preferences menu - Cache tab

Screenshot 2025-12-30 at 9.05.49 AM.png

Rikk Flohr: Adobe Photography Org

E

EdRaponiAuthor

Participating Frequently

Thank you for responding. When I use the edit features from the web version of Lightroom, I do not see the option to select Preferences as you noted. Additionally, looking at the attached picture you provided, I do not see where it provides a path (in Windows it would look like Drive:\Directory\Subdirectory\filename.filetype).

Conrad_C

Correct answer

Community Expert

When I use the edit features from the web version of Lightroom,
By @EdRaponi

The web version will not show that option, because the web app is not permanently installed software and doesn’t provide for the full range of desktop app preferences, such as a local storage cache of originals. The option to specify a path for a local cache of originals is available only in the Lightroom full desktop app on Windows or macOS. (The phone/tablet apps let you set the size of the local cache, but not the location path.)

Additionally, looking at the attached picture you provided, I do not see where it provides a path (in Windows it would look like Drive:\Directory\Subdirectory\filename.filetype).

By @EdRaponi

The screen shot clearly shows a path under the “Storage location for originals” option Rikk was pointing you to, the last option in that panel. If you look at the last line there, it says:

/users/Flohr/Pictures/Lightroom Library.lrlibrary

That is a valid file path…on macOS, so we can guess that he is using a Mac. If that was a Windows PC, the path shown there would use the Windows path convention you mentioned.

However, the most important thing about this suggestion is to keep the big picture in mind:

In one of your other replies, you clarified that what you are looking for is the image path at time of import. That is not what this option does. The “Storage location for originals” setting is a path to a single Lightroom-built cache of originals downloaded from their source storage in the cloud, and that path is set by that option, having nothing to do with any of the different locations where the contained images were imported from. So this option wasn’t going to give you the answer you wanted anyway.

Jim Wilde

Community Expert

The files reside somewhere on the cloud servers, and are managed by Adobe. We have no knowledge of their exact location, but we don't generally need to know. We access the images using Albums/Folders, or All Photos, making use of the appropriate Search and Filter tools.

Why do you need to know where the images are stored?

E

EdRaponiAuthor

Participating Frequently

Maybe I should have worded my question a bit differently, as I know they are in the cloud and I am not interested in physically knowing the location of where Adobe is housing their cloud storage. I am trying to determine where the original files reside on my physical computer, the source files used to populate the cloud version Lightroom is using.

I have a very large system that contains multiple physical drives along with NAS system and am trying to determine where the source of the files that is used for Lightroom..

Conrad_C

Community Expert

…the source files used to populate the cloud version Lightroom is using.
By @EdRaponi

I don’t think Lightroom records the source path for images it imports. I think the way it works is that once images are imported, they are forever divorced from their local originals and any device-specific information about them. Lightroom has no way of remembering where they were imported from, and Lightroom also has no way of knowing if the local sources of original images were moved around or renamed later.

If Lightroom did remember, it would have to remember not only the path, but its device name and OS as well. This is because Lightroom tries as much as possible to work uniformly across any number of cross-platform devices synced through the cloud. For this type of cloud storage, local file paths have no value because local paths cannot be relied on to be the same from device to device and across platforms, and local source paths become even less useful to remember for images imported using the mobile (phone/tablet) or web browser Lightroom client apps. Instead, the cloud storage becomes the consistent storage reference.

I can think of one way for you to get the path you want: In Lightroom, look at the filename of the image you’re interested in, then go to your NAS and search for the same filename.

(Lightroom Classic does track the last known path for every imported file, because Lightroom Classic relies solely on locally stored originals so it must remember their locations. But Lightroom Classic is not what’s being used here.)

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