CR2 files now missing

[dan_1184]

Need some help!

I use Lightroom Classic and Photoshop (windows pc versions) for almost all of my CR2 processing and then save my photos as Jpegs. After they are saved as jpegs in a different folder on my pc, I open Lightroom and open the jpeg there. Then I open Lightroom mobile and everything links up through the cloud so I can save and post my photos to my social media from my phone.

After the most recent update, all of my CR2 files from my library are now missing and the only ones that remain in the library are the jpeg versions that I saved with watermarks. To be clear, after I would process a photo in Lightroom Classic and save the photos as jpegs, I would then show a jpeg file along with the processed verison of the CR2 file in my library. This was awesome because it was a non-destructive workflow and I could go back and re-process the CR2 photo, add or subtract parts of the edit or even modify the crop of the photo for printing and then re-save it as a new jpeg, but still have the original CR2 available for future modificaitons. After the update, all I am left with is just a bunch of jpeg files that are completely useless because the original processed CR2 files are gone. 

I have lost over 1600 processed CR2 files in the Lightroom Classic library and need help recovering them. 

Thank you!

Dan

[dj_paige · Accepted solution]

After the most recent update, all of my CR2 files from my library are now missing and the only ones that remain in the library are the jpeg versions that I saved with watermarks.

Missing? Do you mean there is an exclamation point icon on all of your CR2 photos? Or do you mean that the photos are not shown anywhere in the catalog?

[Anshul_Saini · Accepted solution]

Hi Dan,

Thanks for sharing the detailed context, and I’m really sorry to hear about the missing CR2 files. I want to build on dj_paige’s helpful question above: When you say the CR2 files are “missing,” do you mean they’re no longer visible in your Lightroom Classic catalog, or are they showing with a gray exclamation point (!) indicating Lightroom can’t locate the original files?

If the files are marked with the exclamation point, it likely means the originals still exist on your drive but Lightroom can’t find them due to a change in folder structure or drive letter (common after updates or external drive remounts). You can right-click one of those thumbnails and select “Find Missing Folder” or “Locate Missing File” to reconnect them.

To help us troubleshoot further, could you also let us know:
 • Were your CR2 files saved locally on your internal Windows drive, or on an external HDD/SSD?
 • Were they synced to or stored within a service like Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, or another cloud or network-synced folder?
 • Did anything change recently with those locations, like a drive letter reassignment, a disconnection, or a sync pause?

These details can help us determine whether Lightroom has simply lost the file path or if files may have been moved or hidden due to sync conflicts or external storage changes.

Also, just to double-check:
 • Open Lightroom Classic and go to the Folders panel in the Library module. Are your original folders still listed?
 • If not, you can go to File > Import and manually browse to your expected storage location to see if the CR2 files are still physically on your system.

Lastly, it’s worth checking if Lightroom may have opened a different catalog after the update:
 • Head to File > Open Recent and try opening any previous catalogs that may still have your CR2 files indexed.

Let us know what you find.

Best,

Anshul Saini

[dan_1184]

dj_paige and Anshul, 

I apologize for the delayed response as I did not get any email notification that you two had responded but I do thank you both for your quick responses!

Your responses got me digging deeper into the root cause of what exactly was going on. I had a combination of exclamation marks with incorrect file paths but I also had CR2 files that were just missing from the "All photographs" tab.

It took me a few hours to figure out what happened but It appears that I "lost" all of my orignal CR2 files because of two different reasons.

1.) After the update, Lightroom Classic created file paths to the photos with exclamation marks through a drive (G) that I do not even have on my pc. I deleted that information in Lightroom Classic that had the incorrect drive to start, then testing out on a few photos, I was able to navigate back to the actual location where the photos are stored which fixed the bad file paths. 

2.) The second part of the missing CR2 files from the "all photographs" tab is a mystery to me. It appears that the files or at least the majority of them that have gone missing from the all photographs tab have relocated themselves to the individual folders where they originated. The thing that I don't get is why it decided to only take some of them and not all of them as there are still the processed CR2 files sprinkled in randomly in the all photographs tab next to their jpeg counterparts. 

To make everything worse, both errors doubled down on me as I occasionally also work from a laptop. The nonexistent file path on my laptop was an (E) drive. Everything is a quite messy and it will take me some time to sort everything out with the bad file paths but it appears that I should be able to recover every photo and have access to the original processed CR2 files for the future.

A very odd occurance with this happening but crisis averted 🙂

Thanks,
Dan