Finding all missing photos automatically

[lk155145159]

Hi everyone.

Recently my external RAID array with Lr library & images structure experienced physical damage, and I have sent the hard drives to a specialized firm to recover my data. They were ca. 90% successful. As I have had a cold backup in my cabinet from the past, there's a high chance that those 10% lost photos are in that cold backup hard drive. My restored Lr library shows 'Missing Photographs' and I really found cases that most of that missing photographs really are in that cold backup hard disk. Question: Is there a faster way how Lr can find all missing photographs within that cold backup HDD folder, instead of manual search by: right click on missing photo --> Show in Finder --> Locate??? Can I let my Lr to search all missing photos against that entire cold backup HDD and all its subfolders?

Thanks.

{Moved from Lightroom Cloud to Lightroom Classic Forum by Moderator} 

[Rob_Cullen]

Only if you see the [?] on a topmost parent Folder in the LrC Folder panel, AND your backup files can be restored in the same hierarchy, then you may be able to [Find Missing Folder] and the full hierarchy with files can be restored.

MISSING FILES & FOLDERS (Lightroom Queen)

[johnrellis]

This problem occurs a few times a year (in various incarnations) on the forums, and unfortunately, there's not an easy solution. 

Perhaps the most straightforward approach is to copy the photos from the backup drive to the locations recorded in the LR catalog (where LR expects to find the photos), skipping over photos that are already there.  If the folder hierarchy on the backup drive corresponds to the folder hierarchy containing the photos, then this should be straightforward using the "cp" command in Terminal.

If you're comfortable with scripting (shell scripting, Python, Excel, etc.): Use the Any Filter plugin's Sort command to export a CSV text file containing the paths in the catalog of all the missing photos. Then write a script that matches the paths in that text file with the paths of the photos on your backup drive based on the file names.  From that, generate a script that copies the files from backup drive to the locations expected by the LR catalog.  

[Matt Bacon]

The link provided by Rob_Cullen is useful, and I think I'll need to adjust the way I create and organize my file structure... but why can't Lightroom Classic search for files based on the file name?! Am I missing something. Premiere Pro (and every NLE) does this like a dream, restoring "offline media" is often a piece of cake. Why can't LrC just scan all drives?

If this truly isn't possible, I'm going to submit a feature request. 

Thanks for any info, 

-Matt

[dj_paige]

... but why can't Lightroom Classic search for files based on the file name?!

This is not a feature of Lightroom Classic. We can't answer why, we didn't design the software.

The link provided by Rob_Cullen is useful, and I think I'll need to adjust the way I create and organize my file structure...

I would fix the missing images problem first, before you start re-organizing.