Import from another catalog...doesn't recognize existing photos

Report · Oct 20, 2017

I'm having ANOTHER issue since updating to the new Lightroom Classic CC. I have some photos that were edited on another computer. I exported as a catalog and now I am trying to import from catalog onto my main computer. This has always worked simply in the past. Now however it is not recognizing any duplicate files and only gives me the option to "add new photos to catalog without moving." Under "change existing photos" it says none found. The same images are already imported into the new computer's Lightroom. I've tried it on a couple of galleries. I have never had this issue until just updating. Is this a bug? Is there a solution?

Report · Oct 20, 2017

So I'm not really sure what is going on with this but I did figure out that if I remove the images from LR and then re-import them, THEN import from another catalog it sees the photos as existing already and allows me to carry over the metadata and develop settings. Definitely a big pain to have to go in and re-import everything before transferring from the other computer.

Report · May 30, 2018

I am having the same issue and have not seen any solution.

I exported a small catalog from my main catalog to provide images for a photobook course I was taking. These were put on my MacBook Pro. I edited the images on my laptop. When the course finished, I wanted to import the edited images back into my main catalog. But, when I use the 'import from another catalog' command, it fails to recognize that the photos from the catalog to be imported already exist in my main catalog. I am only given the option to import them as 'new photos'. This is annoying. What I want is for the new edits to be added back as Virtual Copies, to complement the edits that I had already made on the images before the photobook course.

And, if you have to use import new photos, you can not get the photos into the original folder locations - they either stay where they are or can be moved into a single new location. But, not back into the original location. If I have images taken from multiple forlders in my main catalog, restoring them is a real pain.

I am running the latest version of Lightroom Classic (7.3.1) on an iMac desktop and laptop.

i hope that someone from Adobe is monitoring this thread/forum and can take this problem forward for attention.