Lightroom Classic Erased Files From My Hard Drive

[10902]

I was editing photos in Lightroom Classic 11.0.  The image files were not in my catalog--when I imported the images into my catalog I did not move the files.  I selected 8 images (.NEF) and then right-clicked Edit > Edit in Adobe Photoshop 2022.  Lightroom hung at that point.  I retried that two more times.  I closed and re-opened Photoshop and tried once more to edit the images, but again Photoshop did not open.  I rebooted my computer.  Then, when I tried to edit one image, Lightroom said the image was missing.  I checked the contents of the folder that contained the images and indeed that file was missing along with four or five other files, some of which I had never attempted to edit in Photoshop.  The .xmp files remained on the hard drive.  The .NEF files are not in my recycle bin.  I tried searching my hard drive but the missing files are not there.  I tried using EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard to find them on my hard drive but sadly those irreplacable images no longer exist.

[dj_paige]

Lightroom Classic does not move or delete your photo files on its own. Even given the hanging issues mentioned, there simply is no feature programmed into LrC to move or delete photos on its own.

When you said you tried searching for the missing photos, do you mean you used your operating system's search feature to do the search? Or do you mean you yourself looked in a lot of folders and couldn't find them?

I don't know what happened to your photos. I am 100% sure Lightroom Classic did not do this. The best suggestion I can give you is to have backups of all of your photos before you work on them.

[Randy Hufford]

This is totally unusal. I have never seen Lightroom delete the files. My solution to this issue is that my catalog harddrive is actaully my dropbox folder too. So everytime i copy or move images to my catalog harddrive they also copy to dropbox in the cloud. So all my images are on my local harddrive but also are always backing up to dropbox. I never even have to think about backing up it is automatic. Drop Box can actually retrieve any deleted file from as old as 30 days. So maybe try to include a back up solution in your work flow.

[AxelMatt]

I've never heard about that. LR (and Photoshop) doesn't delete photos by itself.

Have you check you hard drive? It seems that there's a fault.

[DS256]

Sorry to hear about your challenge. As others have said, unless you initiated a REMOVE PHOTO with DELETE FROM DISK, LrC  should not lose pictures.

You said "The .xmp files remained on the hard drive." but yet the NEF files are gone. Could I suggest you look at the XMP files and see what the name of the files are they are associated with? Here's an example. I'm hoping somehow the files have just been renamed.

[Claudia34830680xnjl]

The same thing is happening to me

[dj_paige]

May I ask you to provide details, as if this were a totally new thread? We see people say "same thing" all the time, and yet very often it is a different problem with a different solution. So please explain your problem from scratch.

[Elayne@bardandglass]

I am also experiencing the same thing. This has happened twice now that I have been in the middle of editing a project and then I come back the next to continue and a section of my photos are missing on LRC and also are missing from the original file on my harddrive. This doesnt make any sense.

[dj_paige]

It could be that you imported the photos using MOVE by accident. This moves the photos, you won't find them in the original folders you put them in, they are somewhere else in LrC and somewhere else in your operating system. You need to search for them by file name or capture date in LrC, and by file name in your operating system.

[KR Seals]

To add to what dj_paige posted, if you selected "Add" in the Import Dialog and the image files were still on a memory card, they will be gone when the card is removed. This situation is exacerbated by the fact the CFexpress cards are seen as actual drives in the operating systems. In Import, files need to be Copied from the memory card to a place you designate on a local drive.

[dj_paige]

@KR Seals

good point, sad but true, that is a possible cause of what the Elayne@bardandglass is seeing.

[JohanElzenga]

This would be easy to check in the Lightroom Classic folder panel. In that case the missing images are in missing folders and those missing folders are on a not-connected drive, which would look a bit like this:

The name of the drive will probably be 'Untitled' or some name the camera gave it when formatting it. The name of the folder would normally be 'DCIM'.