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jaapc37550964
jaapc37550964
Inspiring
December 9, 2023
Question

showing content from folders and subfolders in Lightroom (local)

  • December 9, 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 3136 views

Hi,

I am trying to browse through my folders and subfolder in lightroom version 7. I want to show  the content from folders and subfolders in one go, similar as in LrC. The only option I find is to browse to the subfolder with images and show the content of that subfolder. My main folder has no images but only subfolders and the message appears: no editable files in this folder.....

 

In LrC also the number of images is shown for the main folder and all it's subfolders, which is not visible for me in LR version 7. 

 

    2 replies

    E
    Ecco.Aqua
    Participant
    December 5, 2024

    I hope to god that adobe adresses this. its so annoying to have to click through to each and every folder one at a time. it just feels dumb and I dont want to use LRc cuz its slow and clunky and i cant move stuff to the cloud as easy and also the dits dont even work sometimes!!!!!

      A
      Adobe Employee
      Ayan Banerjee
      Adobe Employee
      November 10, 2025

      This Sub-Folders feature in Local in LrD is now supported in the latest version 9.0. 

      jaapc37550964
      jaapc37550964Author
      Inspiring
      November 10, 2025
      Yes, a great improvement
      Thanks a lot
      Jaap Croese
      Jim Wilde
      Community Expert
      Jim WildeCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      December 9, 2023

      The "Local" tab in LrD is a file browser which is intended to allow the user to access all the images on the system without having the "import" them into Lightroom (or Lightroom Classic). But because it is a file browser then yes, you do have to drill down through the folder hierarchy to expose the sub-folders that actually contain images. It's the same as Bridge, which is the counterpart file browser for Photoshop and ACR.

       

      LrC, on the other hand, is NOT a file browser.....it only shows you those folders which contain previously imported images, and only shows you the actual number of images that have been imported from those folders (which might not always be the full total of all the images in the folders). But because the catalog database contains that information about the imported images, it can show you data which isn't readily available when using a simple file browser (such as the number of cataloged images for a parent folder and its sub-folders), and lets you populate the grid with the (cataloged) contents of the parent folder and its sub-folders.

       

        jaapc37550964
        jaapc37550964Author
        Inspiring
        December 10, 2023

        Thx for your reply but you are not exactly correct about Bridge. In Bridge I can open and view the subfolders as well. See attachment. This should be a small adjustment for Adobe development team to integrate this in the latest Lightroom as well.  

        In any of my computers, mostly I use Imacs,  i can see directly in a new window how many folders and subfolders are existing plus the number of files in all those (sub)folders. This sort of information is standard in all different kind of operating systems. 

        Another example where viewing folders and subfolders is working excellent is Photo Mechanics which is also a file browser. 

        I hope Adobe will implement this viewing option for folders and subfolders in the near future.

          D
          DomDomMartin
          Known Participant
          April 21, 2025

          Yeah since this is possible, but I'm sure less performant than a catalog database, I would still rather have the option to scan multiple folders and subfolders. For managing portfolios or needing overview on a particular group of images, say from a particular client, for me, these aren't things I need to do often but I HAVE to be able to do them, which kills the local workflow for me. I'd be extremely happy if there was an option to do it, even if it's quite slow, with a UI indication that it's going to take a minute and that browsing is in progress.

          I also understand that LR Desktop is not aimed at professionals, but I'd really like the flexibility and multidevice file managment workflow that the combined cloud/local could provide if Local was beefed up. Having full access to my ongoing projects on all my devices in the cloud, and being able to archive them to Local once completed (due to the sheer volume of data I go through), and still have access to them to edit from my laptop or desktop would be my ideal world. And if the mobile apps ever got local access, through a NAS, good lord, I'd be all in on LR

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