Inspiring

Answered

Index files in Adobe Bridge

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
January 8, 2025
4 replies
2061 views

Hi,
I'm finding that a keyword search in Bridge is not finding all my images.

I think this is because many of the files are not indexed (I have a lot of files, accumulated over the last 20 years or so)

Is there any way to force indexing of all images inside a folder (and subfolders) ?

I'm currently doing a keyword search of the root folder with the option "Include Non-Indexed Files" enabled which is taking a while, but it appears to be finding everything eventually. I'm hoping that when this is finished all the files will be indexed correctly and future searches will be fast, irrespective of keyword.

But is there a better way to do this?

Thanks for any help

Liz

macOS

Correct answer MissLiz166425

Once the search had completed with "include non-indexed files" enabled, subsequent searches with different keywords are now all working fine, finding everything, and super-fast. So all is now good.

I'm surprised there's no simple option "index all files" somewhere in the UI that does this, however.

Thanks

Liz

M

MissLiz166425AuthorCorrect answer

Inspiring

Once the search had completed with "include non-indexed files" enabled, subsequent searches with different keywords are now all working fine, finding everything, and super-fast. So all is now good.

I'm surprised there's no simple option "index all files" somewhere in the UI that does this, however.

Thanks

Liz

Stephen Marsh

Adobe Expert

I'm surprised there's no simple option "index all files" somewhere in the UI that does this, however.

Thanks

Liz

By @MissLiz166425

Bridge is a Browser, not a Catalogue/Database, so it only indexes/caches browsed folders/directories and possibly content from child-folders of the parent-folder if "show items from subfolders" is selected in the view menu.

M

MissLiz166425Author

Inspiring

I would say that Bridge is more than just a browser because:

It stores thumbnails, previews, and metadata for faster access during subsequent use.
It has features like keyword tagging, searching, and filtering that rely on this cached information.

It may not offer all the features of other cataloguing apps, but it still does enough.

But in any case, it doesn't matter now.... I've fixed my issue. Bridge does everything I need it to.

Thanks

Liz

Thanks

Liz

JR Boulay

Adobe Expert

[MOVED TO THE BRIDGE DISCUSSIONS]

Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe

Stephen Marsh

Adobe Expert

This is the Photoshop forum, not Bridge, however, there is a checkbox to search non-indexed files:

L

LAMY2017

Brainiac

My bad, Liz and Stephen. My narrow vision focuses on Ps and LrC, my main tools.

Larry

Stephen Marsh

Adobe Expert

@LAMY2017 – all good, @MissLiz166425 is already using this feature and might also wish to look into the Mac Finder search feature (Cmd + F) to see if this is any faster as it should already be indexed:

L

LAMY2017

Brainiac

Liz, before the advent of Lightroom, I used Bridge as my front end for importing and editing my photos but I never bothered using keywords. Lightroom, Photo Mechanic are probably better choices than Bridge imo.

As far as your request, I searched adobe.com for "Bridge is not finding all my images" and found a helpful webpage created by AI. The search ended up here.

And in case we need Adobe's take on Bridge keywording, check out the article, Use keywords in Adobe Bridge.

Larry

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