File folder format

[barrym6864]

I am a new user to Lightroom Classic and want some advice on reorganizing my pictures. I have over 8000 images. I currently have all my photos in one photos folder sorted in sub folders by events exclusively and not by date. I want to adjust this format to a more functional folder format such as by year, then date in each year, and hopefully with using collections, and keywords as a start to sort my photos, If that makes sense. If that makes sense, is there a quick and easy way to make this change without too much difficulty. I do not want to lose the events link but want to reduce the number of folders I currently use and have maybe a more logical file folder structure.

[Just Shoot Me]

Folders are semi physical on your hard drive. Collections in LR are just Lists of images and have nothing to do with where the images are stored and or in what folder they are in. A Collection is LR is Not a Folder. It like taking a piece of paper and making a list of the objectsd in your home. It doesn't move those object into the room you are making the list in.

If you want to arrange your images in folders by year and into subfolders by something like Month and Day, 0923, in the year folder for 2018 you should do that Before you import them into LR.

But there is no real need to do that with images already on your computers hard drive. You can Sort them using the Filter bar by the year, month and day they were taken.

For future imports, which will copy images from the camera memory card to a folder of your choosing, you can set it up to create folders by the date they were taken.

To get the images that are currently on your hard drive into the LR catalog use the "Add" option (NOT the Copy, Copy as DNG or Move options) at the top of the import dialog window. That will leave all your images in the current folder structure and just Add them to the LR catalog file (a Database file).

[dj_paige]

barrym6864  wrote

I am a new user to Lightroom Classic and want some advice on reorganizing my pictures. I have over 8000 images. I currently have all my photos in one photos folder sorted in sub folders by events exclusively and not by date. I want to adjust this format to a more functional folder format such as by year, then date in each year, and hopefully with using collections, and keywords as a start to sort my photos, If that makes sense. If that makes sense, is there a quick and easy way to make this change without too much difficulty. I do not want to lose the events link but want to reduce the number of folders I currently use and have maybe a more logical file folder structure.

As stated above, you can find photos by date from inside of Lightroom using the Filter Bar. A better plan in general is to leave the folders as they are, import future photos into folders by capture date, and then for all other organizing, use keywords (not collections) and other metadata (captions, titles, GPS Locations). That is, use Lightroom to organize, not folders! You paid money for all of these high powered organizing features inside of Lightroom, use them! Not only does this method provide more benefits, but it avoids drawbacks that beginners seem to struggle with when they rename and/or move folders.

[Tony_See]

Let LR do the heavy lifting and Import by capture date.

Some users later customise these folder names after the import for a more recognisable usability, but let LR do that not your system.