Imported photos only exist in Previous Import folder. How do I get them back?

[Flybridge]

Hi

I imported a lot of photos from our Ruby Wedding anniversary holiday. I saw they were all in the Previous import folder and thought everything was OK, so I removed the card, put it back in the camera and reformatted it.

Today, I opened LRC with the intention of looking at them and starting the edting process, but they are not where they should be - I import to year and day folders, with a copy to another location as a back up. The photos are not in the year and date folders, nor on the backup drive. 

When I click a photo in the Previous import folder and ask it to show me in Finder it says it can't find my camera card.

So where did it import the photos to? I have searched my hard drive and the external drives I use and I can't find the photos anywhere.

Can anyone offer any help?

TIA

Steve

[JohanElzenga · Accepted solution]

Previous Imports is not a folder, it is a collection. It only links to the images, it is not a storage place. It seems that what you did was importing the images by using 'ADD' at the top of the import dialog. That only adds the images to the catalog database (and so they show in this collection), but leaves them on the memory card. Unfortunately this is possible if the memory card is a CFExpress card, for example. Such as card is seen as an external hard disk by MacOS, that is why it is possible to add images to the catalog without copying them to your internal hard disk or another hard disk. As you already formatted the memory card, your only option is recovery software that can 'undelete' them from a formatted card, I'm afraid.

PS. I moved this thread to the Lightroom Classic forums, because this is clearly a Lightroom Classic question, not a Lightroom ecosystem one.