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Coleman10
Participant
April 9, 2026
Question

Organizer Image Thumbnails do not appear when moved to another folder

  • April 9, 2026
  • 1 reply
  • 7 views

Using Elements 2020 and ran into an issue tonight that is very similar to another post (link below), but I don’t see a resolution for that.  After importing images, if I drag the thumbnail to another folder within the application, it disappears and is not visible in the folder.  If I search for the filename, the thumbnail appears and the file info shows that it was moved on the hard drive, but it won’t appear it the folder.  If I take the files in the file explorer folder and drag them into Organizer, the program runs through them all and tells me that they are all already cataloged.  I have tried rebuilding the catalog and also forced a thumbnail rebuild by renaming thumb.5.cache.  That didn’t work.  When testing, I renamed the folder on the hard drive and then drag it back into Organizer - all the thumbnails imported.  Then I renamed the folder within Organizer.  It renamed the folder on the hard drive and all the thumbnails disappeared from the folder - all the except the ones that were originally missing.  Huh?  Then the folder disappeared completely. Rebuilding the catalog does not work.  The photos are now gone from the application, but when I try to import then again, it tells me that they already exist.  Rebuild again, no errors found - rebuild anyway.  No change.

My catalog is on the C drive and my photos are on a NAS.  I never had a problem before with this configuration.  It just started tonight.

Any ideas?

 

 

 

 

    1 reply

    Greg_S.
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    April 9, 2026

    Adobe does not recommend using a NAS for the Organizer catalog.  However, you have not told us the full path name of the folder to which you moved the thumbnail.  It may be a simple case of dragging to a folder that was not previously used in the catalog.  If that is the case, right-click on the parent folder(s) in the My Folders hierarchy and click on Show All SubFolders.  You can also use the command to Import Media from that folder if the file does not show up correctly.

     

     

    Coleman10
    Coleman10Author
    Participant
    April 9, 2026

    My catalog is on the local C drive.  Only the photos are on a NAS.

     

    Both folders I’m using are subfolders and previously cataloged.  If I drag an image from one imported folder to another, the thumbnail should show up in the target folder.  It does not.  If I right click on the imported folder and click Import Media, it runs through the images and tells me that it imported the new image.  It then shows me the image alone to show me that it’s there, but when I view all images in that folder, it’s not there.  Click Refresh does nothing.  If I search the image, it comes up.  It just won’t show in the grid.

     

    Another test:  Using file explorer, I dragged a new image to a cataloged folder.  Right click on the folder and Import Media.  The program shows that it imported the new image and then shows it alone on the screen.  However, once I click the back button to show the full folder, it’s gone.  It should show up with the rest of the images in the folder.

     

    The only time it displays images is on the initial import.  Any sort of movement of images from within the application between folders that are currently cataloged makes the images disappear.