Lightroom won't let me export my photos

[chillkickness]

Lightroom isn't letting me export my photos. The option to select "export" is gray as opposed to the normal black font so I can't even select the option. Please help me!!

[Just Shoot Me]

Have you actually selected any images. If no images are selected that is what happens.

[Per Berntsen]

Have you actually selected any images. If no images are selected that is what happens.

Doesn't work that way for me. With no image selected, Export is not grayed out, and clicking it brings up the export dialog, saying "Export 28 files", so LR interprets this as all files selected, Must be a bug.

chillkickness - the text is always gray on the Export button, have you tried clicking it? Does File > Export work?

[chillkickness]

When I click export it says the file is offline or missing. Any ideas?

[Just Shoot Me]

chillkickness  wrote

When I click export it says the file is offline or missing. Any ideas?

Then that is a different problem than the button being grayed out.

Where exactly are you storing your images? Is it on an external drive and if so is that drive connected and does it show up in the File Manager program for the OS installed on your computer?

[Horton Photo]

Hi Just Shoot ME,

Did you find an answer for this, I am having the same problem. TY

[Per Berntsen · Accepted solution]

This means that you have either moved, renamed or deleted the file outside Lightroom, or it resides on an external disk which is not currently connected, so that Lightroom cannot find the file. To fix the problem, see this article:

Adobe Lightroom - Find moved or missing files and folders

You may also find this article helpful: http://perberntsen.com/misc/technical/lightoom.php

[Horton Photo]

I do not think that is the case, I am having the same problem, and I did not move, rename or dele and I tried the find missing, and nothing happened.

[dj_paige]

You may think you didn't move rename or delete the photos, but Lightroom Classic thinks you (or some third party software ) did. So you need to find out why Lightroom Classic thinks this is the case. You need to determine, for at least one such photo, what exact folder and file name Lightroom Classic is looking for, and then you need to find that same photo file using your operating system. I am willing to bet Lightroom Classic and your operating system don't match.

[Horton Photo]

Hi DJ, Thanks so much for your quick response, oh, yes just ended up upgrading to Mojave as a way to troubleshooting another problem, ended up not needing to do this, and my LRC is now 9.4.

Now, what the heck am I to do? 

[Horton Photo]

10.14.6 Mojave

[dj_paige]

It's not clear to me what upgrading your operating system has to do with the problem. Nevertheless, I suggested a course of action, that's what I think you should do.

[Horton Photo]

thank you, ok I will try this

So you need to find out why Lightroom Classic thinks this is the case. You need to determine, for at least one such photo, what exact folder and file name Lightroom Classic is looking for, and then you need to find that same photo file using your operating system. I am willing to bet Lightroom Classic and your operating system don't match.

I am away from my hard drive at the moment, after this, then what?

[dj_paige]

The solution is http://www.computer-darkroom.com/lr2_find_folder/find-folder.htm

[ManiacJoe]

"yes just ended up upgrading to Mojave"

Mac OS upgrades seem to have a bad habit of messing with file system permissions.

Make sure you have READ and WRITE access to the drive, the folder the LrCat file is in, and the parent of that folder.

[Just Shoot Me]

Per you are correct. Sorry to the OP for my misunderstanding of the problem.

[ZB P]

Quite arrogant responses without actually helping @justshootme

[renees90999877]

I just got through editing these photos and it is not exporting them I don't understand what is causing the problem.

[Rob_Cullen]

Give us some clues to work with!

Please include the following in your question:
Adobe product and Version number.
A Screenshot of the info panel from MENU: Help/System Info...
Operating system and Version number
The full text of any Error Message(s)
What you were doing when the problem occurred
Screenshots of the problem.

[pixbytwila]

I'm having the same problem.  Updated all my Adobe apps a few days ago, but now LRC won't complete the export of my NEF/RAW files.  When attempting an export in .jpg format, all appears to work fine, the progress bar shows exporting 18 files.  But at the end where it should be pushing everything to the Lightroom Edits folder it throws up an error message.  However, it seems to export just fine if I choose .png file format. 

All of my photography work is on an external NAS drive with a mapped network drive for access to those files. I upload from the camera card to the NAS, then Import into LRC from that same folder on the NAS.  Once Editing is done, I Export back to that same folder into the Lightroom Edits folder that LRC sets up.  I've used this NAS drive as my working/backup drive for 3 years w/o any problems in LRC until now.

That said, I attempted to Export to the Desktop, but got the same result.  Also attempted to Export straight to the C: drive, same result.  So I believe I've ruled out any network issue.  I've also double checked for read/write attributes on the NAS.  I can still access, copy, paste, add and/or remove anything on that drive, so that also appears to be a non-issue.

The only work around I can find is to continue to Export as .png but then I have additional work to do to convert them to .jpgs. I really would prefer to NOT have extra work to do.

I've attached screenshots of the error message and OS information.

Thanks for any help you can give.

Twila

[Xina274600255cu5]

my problem was that last field asking what to do with the files - had go to another application selected accidentally. turned it back to show in explorer. fixed. 

[pixbytwila]

I tried that too, with no fix.  HOWEVER, the most recent update to LRC seems to have fixed the problem.  Everything is working great now!  Thank you for your reply Xina.  I guess I should update my own query.  🙂

[pixbytwila]

Not sure what caused my issues previously, but the most recent LRC update seems to have fixed it all!  LRC ver. 12.0.1

[richardmatts]

For those, like me, who were directed to this page when looking for a solution to the "resize" and "sharpen to" options appearing gray and inactive in the LR export window and were frustrated at not finding the answer: In in my case, the problem was simply because I chose DNG as the image format! As soon as I noticed this detail and switched to TIFF or JPEG, these options became active.
Yes, it's embarrassing. That's why we need to avoid panic and irritation to be able to notice problems that may be very small.