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1

Import existing files with adobe bridge

New Here ,
Apr 09, 2021 Apr 09, 2021

A coworker gave me a disk drive that has a folder that contains several hundred images. I know Bridge can import from a camera or an SD card reader but how can I import from an existing folder and let Bridge read the image meta data, rename, and create the new folders, etc. same as if it came from a camera?

 

Thanks in advance, JP

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How to , Import and export
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correct answers 1 Correct answer

Community Expert , Apr 12, 2021 Apr 12, 2021

Oh, yeah. OK, didn't catch that from your first message.

 

The PhotoDownloader is designed to get images OFF of a camera card whether it's still in the camera or on a card reader. If the images are on an external hard drive, flash drive, whatever, there's nothing to download. 

 

At the point you're at, simply drag the images from one hard drive to the other. Once it's off the camera card, you simply move the images around like you would any digital file.

 

Hope that makes sense.

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Community Expert ,
Apr 09, 2021 Apr 09, 2021

You do not say if you are on a Mac or a PC but on the Mac, if I want to view the contents of a folder, I drag the folder or a single image from that folder onto the Bridge icon in the Dock. I belive that the same option works on a PC. 

 

Alternatively you can use the Folder Panel to drill down to the folder location.

 

You can access/look at any folder anywhere that you have a connection* in Bridge.

 

*folder on your hard drive on a flash drive on an external drive, etc.

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New Here ,
Apr 12, 2021 Apr 12, 2021

Thanks Gary, I am using Bridge v11.0.1.109 for Windows. I'm not asking to access/look at a folder in Bridge.

 

What I was hoping to learn is how can I import from an existing HD folder and let Bridge read the image meta data, rename files, and create subfolders, etc. same as if it came from a camera?

 

Maybe I am missing something. The "Get Photos from:" dropdown only shows detected devices. i.e. camera, SD card, etc.

joew37139545_0-1618223591322.pngexpand image

 

 

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Community Expert ,
Apr 12, 2021 Apr 12, 2021

Oh, yeah. OK, didn't catch that from your first message.

 

The PhotoDownloader is designed to get images OFF of a camera card whether it's still in the camera or on a card reader. If the images are on an external hard drive, flash drive, whatever, there's nothing to download. 

 

At the point you're at, simply drag the images from one hard drive to the other. Once it's off the camera card, you simply move the images around like you would any digital file.

 

Hope that makes sense.

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New Here ,
Apr 20, 2021 Apr 20, 2021

I too would like to find out if Bridge can look at pictures that are already on a harddrive and sort them into folders.  The above thread mentions that you can surf the photos on the hdd like normal files but  I would find it really helpful if the hdd location could be discovered by the photo downloader instead of only a SD card or actual device.

My phone has a pile of photos, and I would like to select a subset of them, and dump them to my (computer or network) file storage location, then have Bridge sort them into sub folders based on shoot date.

Perhaps this should be a feature request?

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New Here ,
Apr 05, 2022 Apr 05, 2022

I am in a similar boat.  I have 32,000 images taken over the past 20 years in my Windows Pictures folder, with most of them still in a raw format.  My wife has been using Adobe Lightroom and storing her images in the cloud for years.  Between running low on hard drive space, and wanting to finally get around to culling and editing my library, I want to import my existing library into the cloud.  I've searched YouTube and only found tutorials for importing from my camera.  I am really frustrated with the steep learning curve for Adobe products.

 

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Community Expert ,
Apr 05, 2022 Apr 05, 2022

Hi Greg,

 

This is actually pretty easy. I found a video that shows you the basics of Lightroom CC, if you skip to 1'50", you'll get to the beginning of the import process. HOWEVER, Jesus has some images already selected, you will need to navigate to your Windows Pictures Folder and select those images.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ys5eyEs48RM 

A couple of things to keep in mind: if you have 32,000 images, do NOT ingest them all at the same time. I cannot tell you how many to select at a time, but I'd suggest about 100 at a time at first. See how everything handles this process and go up or down in number from there. Also, this will only copy the images, not move them. So, you will have to remove them from your hard drive as you move them. Lastly, and this is obviously a personal feeling, I'd hate like heck to upload my entire collection and not have a backup on planet earth. So, you may wish to invest in some external drives to save copies of your images. I'm NOT saying I do not trust Adobe's clouds, I'm just a sort of half-empty kinda guy and wish to have a plan B available. But that's just me, you may be a half-full kinda guy.

 

Good luck!

 

 

In this Lightroom CC Tutorial, you will learn to import files into Lightroom. This video is part of my training series "Lightroom CC for Beginners" you can watch the rest of the videos here: â–º Subscribe to My Channel Here: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdQ_ZkYaMe6qPoueUyPQgpQ?sub_confirmation=1
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LEGEND ,
Apr 06, 2022 Apr 06, 2022

There is nothing to import, your files are already on your hard drive. I'm not sure what you mean by "import into the cloud" but Lightroom CC (not Lightroom Classic) EXPORTS to the cloud. You would need that rather than Bridge for a cloud-based workflow.

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Community Beginner ,
Oct 10, 2022 Oct 10, 2022

I have a large collection of photos on my computer and several hard drives that I would like to collate toegther in Adobe Bridge, but don't want to manually transfer them across. I want to be able to import images as I would from a camera / memory card and have Bridge automatically create folders as per date image was taken etc.

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Community Expert ,
Oct 10, 2022 Oct 10, 2022

Good news, you do not need to. There is no "Importing" in Bridge, nor do the files have to be in any specific location. They can be anywhere. 

 

One thing that will help you is to use the Favorites Panel. Simply drag the folder's icon to the bottom of the list, and it will stay there. As long as your folders are given good names (Nancy's wedding, Trip to Kansas, etc.) that are easily identifiable, you can just click on them, and you're there to that folder. If your folders are names Photographs 1, Photographs 2, etc., it could be an issue for you.

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Community Beginner ,
Oct 11, 2022 Oct 11, 2022

Thanks Gary. I knew I could access photos from different locations through Bridge, what I am keen to do is have all my photos put into folders as per date shot/taken. For example 20221012 (today's date). This is how I import all photos from my camera since I started using Bridge 6 years ago. I want to quickly update my previous photo libraries to match this format. Does that make sense? Do you know if this is possible?

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Community Expert ,
Oct 11, 2022 Oct 11, 2022

Ha! You and I are completely different on that. I think my problem is (that, as my wife says) I'm Chronologically Challenged. So, for example, I have our trips to the UK in master folders that say UK - 1984, UK - 1998, UK - 2004 Wales, UK 2012, Scotland. Etc. The actual date for me would be a deal breaker for me to find anything. Nonetheless, I keep these files in LR Classic and have things well keyworded in there.

 

Now, regarding your issue, I'm afraid that this might require some work on your part. There may be better ways to do this, but I do not know them. I'm going to assume that you've been doing something like this for some time now. Do you have any of your images already in folders by day? By week? By month? By Year?

 

I have no way of knowing how far you want to bury these folders but I can suggest a way to dig into a folder of images and start to parse them into date ranges.

 

If you have a folder of mixed dates. Go over to the Filter menu and you will see the dates on THOSE files, like here:

2022-10-11_15-11-50.pngexpand image

If you check any of those dates, JUST those images will be displayed. Then you can create a new folder with an appropriate name, put them in there, then uncheck that date and do another. Yes, this will be a bit tedious, but there's no way for Bridge to do this without you — you have to work together. 

 

I strongly suggest you have a plan and a specific objective before you start; otherwise, you will have to backtrack and change course. Obviously a pain.

 

I hope this is of some help; good luck!

 

In a way, organizing is like planting trees: the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The next best time to plant a tree is now.

 

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Community Beginner ,
Oct 11, 2022 Oct 11, 2022

I had the sinking feeling this might have been the answer I was going to get. I have changed my system a couple of times over the years, so MOST are in some kind of chronological order.

 

I do add key words, similar to yours, after the date to help me naviagte and locate specific events etc. (20220912 - Tasmania).

 

Thanks so much for your assistance, Gary, greatly appreciated. 🙂

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Community Expert ,
Oct 11, 2022 Oct 11, 2022

FWIW, I think you can automate this to some degree with LR Classic when importing images. I'm not sure as I use "MY" filing system and have never tested for your wishes or needs. I can say that when you're dealing with a lifetime of images, I strongly prefer LR Classic over Bridge when you're dealing with over 67,000 images. Bridge cannot do that. I know people who have hundreds of thousands of images in LRC. I use Bridge all the time but only when I'm dealing with small groups of images for small projects. 

 

Just a thought.

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New Here ,
Jan 25, 2023 Jan 25, 2023

Read my message about FAT volume

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New Here ,
Jan 25, 2023 Jan 25, 2023

Hey Everyone,

I know this is an old post - but I ran into this tonight and found a solution. It appears the flag that Bridge needs to recognize it as a "camera" is for it to be formatted as a FAT volume. ExFAT, HFS or AFPS won't work. I formatted a very large drive as FAT and dumped thousands of images - opened the tool and it saw that as a "camera". Imported and now it's dumped into folders per date of shoot.

 

Randomly, Bridge incorrectly used the modified date as a created date for a file I had recently updated the metadata in DigiKam. It's possible I did something weird, but the rest worked as expected.

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New Here ,
Apr 13, 2025 Apr 13, 2025
LATEST

That's a good workaround. Thanks for posting that! Adobe should really incorporate a proper solution to this

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