Adobe Elements 13 Organiser Grey Folders problem

danieljbishop  wrote I'm running Adobe Elements 13 Organizer on a MacBook Air.

Dan, let's go step by step.

Whatever version of the Organizer you are using, there is a golden rule:

Never, never move, delete or rename files outside of the organizer, which is made to do that.

danieljbishop  wrote I'm running Adobe Elements 13 Organizer on a MacBook Air.  I moved around 22,000 photos from one MacBook folder structure to another using MacBook Finder.  Now I have two sets of folders in the Organizer.  The old set of folders are greyed out, but you can go into them and see photos, each with a question mark.

That's what happens when you don't apply the above golden rule.

The catalog in the organizer stores the location of your files when you 'imported' them (= indexed them). It also stores all kinds of information about your files (exif, tags, captions) plus a small thumbnail for visual searches and browsing. If you move files outside of the organizer, the links are not updated. If you move files from the organizer, it works like your Finder, plus it updates the new links. No need to 'reconnect' which may be very tricky.

I moved around 22,000 photos from one MacBook folder structure to another using MacBook Finder

Did you simply move your image folder tree or also the catalog folder (to be found with the menu Help >> System Information)?

If you don't move the catalog, the organizer creates a new one and you can reimport all your files. Even if you have 'written metadata to files', that second import will lose albums, stacks, version sets... But that's not what you are describing.

What you are describing (two folder trees) may happen if you have first moved your photos from the Finder and also moved the catalog folder.

The correct procedure to move catalog and library to a new computer or drive is:

Move Elements Organizer catalog | Elements 6 or later

If you have used it after the move from the finder, that might explain the duplicated folder tree.