Question

lost tags and labels after hard disc crash and restore

Forum|Forum|4 months ago
January 13, 2026
3 replies
144 views

About 6 months ago my PC hard drive crashed. I restored my photos and data to a new PC from an online backup. When I loaded the 2020 Elements software the labels and tags were missing. I bought a subscription for Elements 2026 and downloaded it. The tags and labels were still not showing up in the organizer. I talked to Adobe support and they said I needed to find a backup in my PC files to restore my labels and tags. I had not backed up the old software for many months and do not know where to find it in my backup. How can I recover my tags and labels?

Crash or freeze

Greg_S.

Community Expert

It sounds like your files are still being indexed by Windows and have not yet been found. I recommend using a free utility called Everything. It is very fast for indexing and finding files.

There is no problem with you importing your new files into either version of Elements. It should not interfere with trying to restore your old tags. But until we sort this out, you should keep the original files on your camera's memory card or on your phone if that is what you used to take them.

As for your IT guy, my instructions would be to go the File>Manage catalogs dialog in Elements 2020 and see if any catalogs besides the [Current] one show up under Catalogs Accessible by All Users. If any are found, select each one and hit the Open button to see whether the catalog contains the tags, etc.

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Greg_S.

Community Expert

So, as I understand it, you had a backup of your old C drive on iDrive and that backup has been used to create the old drive on your new drive. Is that correct? If so, do a search of your computer for a file named catalog.pse18db. If you did not move or rename the catalog on your old drive, you should find it in the following location:

C:\ProgramData\Adobe\Elements Organizer\Catalogs\My Catalog\

Do you have a working copy of Elements 2020 installed on your computer? If yes, simply double click on the file that should be found in the location I have specified. If no, we can use a different method to convert the old catalog.

If the catalog file cannot be found, you can look for your old catalog backup by searching for a file named with a .tly extension. Let us know if and where you find it.

G

GTOguy66Author

I have a working copy of Elements 2020 on my system

I have tried to search for the C drive file and varations but nothing shows up. For most of the searches it just continues to search but does not show any files.

I tried to search for the .tly file but it just continues to search. I am searching in the C drive folder and using the search window.

I may have to bring my IT person in to help. I can show him the messages you have sent. If you can give him any other directions on what he is looking for and how to restore the tags and labels if he finds the file I will show it to him.

G

GTOguy66Author

I have a lot of photos from a recent trip that I have not uploaded to my computer. They are still on the camera memory cards and my iPhone. I have promised access to some of thes photos to the people on the trip

If I upload these photos,will it effect whether we can still try to find the old tags and bring them into the 2026 software version.

I have held off uploading the photos concerned that it might keep me from continueing to try to find the tags and restore.

JD

Greg_S.

Community Expert

@GTOguy66 said: I had not backed up the old software for many months and do not know where to find it in my backup.

This suggests that you at least have a backup that is several months old. What kind of backup is it? Did you use Elements to backup the catalog? Or some other backup software?

How did you import the photos into the new 2026 catalog?

I assume that you never saved the metadata to the files (using Ctrl+W). If that is the case, the tag metadata will only be automatically saved to the file if you edited it in the Editor.

Where do you keep your catalog folder stored. If you didn't change the location, it will be on the C drive. Do you have a backup of the C drive from which you can restore folders?

G

GTOguy66Author

I shold have a very old backup of the organizer somewhere on the new PC hard drive. I do not know what to search for to locate this old backup. I did not know how to save the metadata so did not do that. I have my current backup on iDrive. It is the backup we used to restore my crashed hard drive to the new computer so an old backup should be there but do nto know how to find it.

I have not imported any photos in to the new 2026 organizer. The photos were there when I opened the organizer after I installed the 2026 version but without the tags. Now when I open the organizer there are 30 or more head shot of various people before I schroll down to see the last photos uploaded. These head shots have a lot of duplicates and there were never there before.

The last photos I imported was in July of 2025 and that was the old computer and the 2020 version of elements.

Thanks for responding to my questions. I have never used a user group like this for help.

I do have a good IT person who helps me with my computer but he knows nothing about the Elements software.

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