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J
joew37139545
New Participant
April 9, 2021
Answered

Import existing files with adobe bridge

  • April 9, 2021
  • 2 replies
  • 4692 views

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

    Correct answer gary_sc

    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.

    2 replies

    J
    Jason28111900cxpw
    New Participant
    January 26, 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.

    C
    CJA__
    New Participant
    April 13, 2025

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

    gary_sc
    gary_sc
    Adobe Expert
    April 9, 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.

      J
      joew37139545Author
      New Participant
      April 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.

       

       

        gary_sc
        gary_sc
        Adobe Expert
        October 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?


        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:

        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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