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dong59613834
Participating Frequently
February 15, 2026
Question

Just open a previously opened image. Don't make me hunt for it in the Library. Just open it.

  • February 15, 2026
  • 2 replies
  • 0 views

Please change Lightroom so it JUST OPENS THE FILE if you previously worked with it in Lightroom.

It is not helpful that if you try to open a previously worked file all that happens is a message: Previously Added.  Fantastic! How about OPENING THE FILE?

Instead the user has to go hunt for the image in the Lightroom Library.  Lightroom of course knows where it is ,,, it found it and said: Previously Added instead of JIST OPENING THE FILE.

The user has to determine the date. Now navigated into the Lightroom Library where there may be hundreds of images to sift through for a particular day.

It is a five minute waste of User time to hunt for the image and then open it in from the Library. When all Lightroom has to do is OPEN THE FILE that it already located in the Library.

I have this waste of time and efficiency over and over and over. I regularly need to re-crop photos for other needs, or adjust color, or simply opened it in Lightroom days, weeks, ago and decided not to use it then and now need to use the file now.

JUST OPEN THE FILE the user wants to work with,.  Not hard.

 

 

    2 replies

    Rob_Cullen
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    February 15, 2026

    Have you tried using the Sort by ‘Recent Edits’, or using the ‘By Date’ sort?

     

     

    Regards. My System: Windows-11, Lightroom-Classic 15.1.1, Photoshop 27.3.1, ACR 18.1.1, Lightroom 9.0, Lr-iOS 10.4.0, Bridge 16.0.2 .
    KR Seals
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    February 15, 2026

    Pedantic, I know, but Lightroom never actually opens a file. When you are working on an image, you are seeing adjustments or changes to metadata on a preview of the file. If you zoom in, Lightroom rereads the original file to present you with a higher resolution preview. 

    I think what you would need Lightroom to do is maintain a list of files recently worked on. That sounds like a very useful idea. 

    Ken Seals - Nikon Z 9, Z 8, 14mm-800mm. Computer Win 11 Pro, I7-14700K, 64GB, RTX3070TI. Travel machine: 2021 MacBook Pro M1 MAX 64GB. All Adobe apps.