Changed folder name - now images are greyed out

[defaultjp2pp0on9sos]

I changed the name of my folder from summer to summer/fall and now all the images that were previously in there are greyed out and the name is still summer. The new folder summer/fall contains only images that were downloaded after I changed the name. How do I get the older images back? I still have to work on them.

[dj_paige]

Images greyed out is not usally a symptom of changing a folder name, unless you are trying to re-import the photos. Is that what you are doing? You don't mention re-importing. Please clarify. Please take us through what you did step-by-step and in detail, starting with the changing of the folder name, and mentioning all steps afterwards (how did you do that? where did you do that?), leaving nothing out.

[defaultjp2pp0on9sos]

No, I didn't try and re-import. I right clicked on the folder and renamed it to summer/fall. It is a sub folder under the parent folder and then there are multiple subfolders beneath it. I then imported new images, on 3 different shoots. These went into a new folder summer/fall, which I can access. The images that were in summer, previous to the change, are greyed out and inaccessible. Really appreciate your help. Have 6000 images to plough through and I'm stalled. Ughhh!!

[defaultjp2pp0on9sos]

I got it...find missing folders and merge. Thank you!!

[richardplondon]

I would avoid including, or trying to include,  "/" in any folder name or file name. There's quite a lot of other characters too, which in some contexts serve a special practical function, hence that it's wise to reserve for that. This is the case for folders, also for file naming, also for such matters as keywording.

Rather than having to learn about all the ways that one or another bit of punctuation (or whatever) can unexpectedly bite you - the most certain course is to just stick to a definitely safe list of standard characters. 

With letters, numbers, dashes, underscores, spaces - and a few others - bearing in mind that "Fred" and "fred" are not always going to get distinguished properly - you won't ever go wrong. But with "%", or "+" say - you easily might. Worst of all: this naming may not be initially rejected, but then still cause you an issue later.

[dj_paige]

No, I didn't try and re-import. I right clicked on the folder and renamed it to summer/fall. It is a sub folder under the parent folder and then there are multiple subfolders beneath it. I then imported new images, on 3 different shoots. These went into a new folder summer/fall, which I can access. The images that were in summer, previous to the change, are greyed out and inaccessible. Really appreciate your help. Have 6000 images to plough through and I'm stalled. Ughhh!!

By @defaultjp2pp0on9sos

You might want to re-consider the use of folders as a means of identifying content in your photos. Instead if you use keywords to identify content, and then re-named a keyword, none of your above problems would have happened.

[F. McLion]

To me, it sounds as you eventually did change the folder name with Explorer/Finder.

Make sure to manipulate file and folder names and locations from within LrC only.

[JohanElzenga]

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@defaultjp2pp0on9sos wrote:

I changed the name of my folder from summer to summer/fall and now all the images that were previously in there are greyed out and the name is still summer. The new folder summer/fall contains only images that were downloaded after I changed the name. How do I get the older images back? I still have to work on them.

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If you named the folder "summer/fall", then that explains it. A slash in a folder or file name is perfectly acceptable in MacOS, but Lightroom uses slashes as separators in paths. So by changing that name to "summer/fall", you made Lightroom think that there is a folder called "summer" which has a subfolder called "fall" in it. And because there is no such folder hierarchy in reality, Lightroom can no longer find these images and update their previews if necessary.