File renaming on import

[Mike42809]

Hi - I copied our iPhone holiday photos onto the server where I have my LrC photos stored and then did an import.  Unfortunately I imported them into the wrong folder.  I deleted those files and imported them into the correct location.  Basically just importing the location into LrC.  The problem I'm running into is I want to use a custom name along with the original file sequence number.  That worked fine on the original import to the wrong location.  Now when I try to do it LrC keeps adding a -2 to every file.  Even when I tell LrC to use the original file name.

Any ideas?  I'm not sure if there's a way to clear/reset LrC so I can basically start over.

I have tried:

1. Removing the files and permanently deleting them from LrC

2. Creating a new folder to import them into

3. Restarting LrC

I'm using an M1 iMac running the latest Mac OS Ventura and LrC 12.1.

Thanks. 

[Mike42809]

I found a workaround.  I copied the photos to a folder on my iMac and then imported into LrC in the folder I wanted them in.  This time LrC renamed the files the way I wanted/expected.

[richardplondon · Accepted solution]

For a future occasion, the sequence should have been:

physically move files into the "right" location (using Finder);

LrC still shows these photos living in the "wrong" location in Folders panel, since it knows no different as yet;

therefore folder and files are now marked as not-available;

resolve this by showing LrC where you have moved the folder and files to:

Cmd+click the containing folder in the Folders panel, choose "Find Missing Folder" and browse to that.

LrC's Folders panel now reports the photos at this other location. Nothing else has changed about these photos - no removing, no re-importing, no loss of their edits or renaming etc. They have merely updated their storage address.

For now, it may be that redundant copies have been left within your Catalog and/or on disk, at an address that you are not now expecting. So check both the "old" and the "new" locations inside the Catalog and also externally, with Finder.

Also check what type of import you have been doing: whether Add (in-place), Move or Copy. If Move or Copy, you will need to look in the destination location for that Move or that Copy, and not the location where you selected these photos for import.

[Mike42809]

Thanks for the reply Richard.  All great info and suggestions I will use going forward.

[JohanElzenga]

If Lightroom adds a '-2' to the new file name, then that means that there already is a file with this name in the folder. That file does not have to be in Lightroom however, so you may only see the '-2' files appear in Lightroom.