Can someone help me understand why my edited photos are showing up as “File Not Found”? The original RAW file is still there and opens normally, but the edited version shows the missing file icon.Here’s what I did:I first edited the image in Lightroom.Then I sent it to Photoshop for additional edits and saved it.The edited Photoshop version appeared back in Lightroom in a stack, no issues.I never exported the final edited file.A few days later, when I went back to export the edited image, Lightroom said the file couldn’t be found, but only for the edited Photoshop version. The original file is still intact. Since the edited file wasn’t exported and Lightroom can’t locate it, I have no way to relink or recover it.Does anyone know why this happens or how to prevent it?

A

Anonymous

Question

Lightroom classic- "file not found" on pictures that have not been exported yet

Forum|Forum|5 months ago
December 13, 2025
3 replies
544 views

Can someone help me understand why my edited photos are showing up as “File Not Found”? The original RAW file is still there and opens normally, but the edited version shows the missing file icon.

Here’s what I did:

I first edited the image in Lightroom.
Then I sent it to Photoshop for additional edits and saved it.
The edited Photoshop version appeared back in Lightroom in a stack, no issues.
I never exported the final edited file.

A few days later, when I went back to export the edited image, Lightroom said the file couldn’t be found, but only for the edited Photoshop version. The original file is still intact. Since the edited file wasn’t exported and Lightroom can’t locate it, I have no way to relink or recover it.

Does anyone know why this happens or how to prevent it?

macOS

A

Anonymous

Can someone help me understand why my edited photos are showing up as “File Not Found”? The original RAW file is still there and opens normally, but the edited version shows the missing file icon.

Here’s what I did:

I first edited the image in Lightroom.
Then I sent it to Photoshop for additional edits and saved it.
The edited Photoshop version appeared back in Lightroom in a stack, no issues.
I never exported the final edited file.

A few days later, when I went back to export the edited image, Lightroom said the file couldn’t be found, but only for the edited Photoshop version. The original file is still intact. Since the edited file wasn’t exported and Lightroom can’t locate it, I have no way to relink or recover it.

I saved the same photo twice from photoshop. One with a white background, and one with a grey background. It created a stack of 3 images. I only exported the white background photo. When I went back a few days later to export the Grey background it said it could not be found. But as you can see every other image in the stack is showing up normal (with NO ! icon) and the grey background image cannot be found. When I try to locate the grey background image, there is nothing for me to locate because it was never exported out of lightroom classic.

Does anyone know why this happens or how to prevent it?

dj_paige

Legend

From your previous thread at https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/lightroom-classic-quot-file-not-found-quot-on-pictures-that-have-not-been-exported-yet/m-p/15632966#M421410, the exclamation point icon on the photo in the filmstrip indicates that the file (or folder that contains it) has been moved or renamed or delete from your hard disk, and this was done outside of LrC.

You can fix this by finding the file in your operating system (so that you know exactly what folder it is in, and so that you know exactly what the file name is if it was changed) and then follow the instructions here: https://www.computer-darkroom.com/lr2_find_folder/find-folder.htm

dj_paige

Legend

... when I went back to export the edited image, Lightroom [Classic] said the file couldn’t be found, but only for the edited Photoshop version.

Are you saying the edited file from Photoshop has an exclamation point icon in Lightroom Classic (as shown in Figure 2 here) indicating the file is missing? Or are you saying that the edited file from Photoshop has an exclamation point icon within a black circle in Lightroom Classic? Or are you saying something else?

What does exporting have to do with this?

A

Anonymous

Yes to the first option. I saved the same photo twice from photoshop. One with a white background, and one with a grey background. It created a stack of 3 images. I only exported the white background photo. When I went back a few days later to export the Grey background it said it could not be found. But as you can see every other image in the stack is showing up normal (with NO ! icon) and the grey background image cannot be found. When I try to locate the grey background image, there is nothing for me to locate because it was never exported out of lightroom classic.

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AxelMatt

Community Expert

Then I sent it to Photoshop for additional edits and saved it.

By @33944760

How do you saved it in Photoshop? Do you a "normal" save? In this case the .psd file should be saved in the same folder beside the original RAW. Do you have a look with the Filer into the appropriate folder?

Do you store your images on an external drive?

My System: Intel i7-8700K - 64GB RAM - NVidia Geforce RTX 3060 - Windows 11 Pro 25H2 -- LR-Classic 15 - Photoshop 27 - Nik Collection 9 - PureRAW 6 - Topaz Photo AI

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Anonymous

I press command S to do a normal save (on photoshop). When I do this, it automatically populates the edited photo into a stack on my lightroom catalog. It shows up as a tif in lightroom stacked with the original raw photo. Here you can see the raw photo with 2 different edited versions that I saved. The white background is what I exported and I did not export the grey background. When I went back to export the image with the grey background a few days later it says "the file cannot be found." So when I press "locate file" there is nothing for me to locate because it was never exported from lightroom in the first place. This has happened with so many of my edited files and I cant figure out how to find them or prevent this from happening

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