Lost develop history when moving files on disk and synchronizing

[acharnas]

I moved a large number of directories/files (that were in LR catelog) from one external disk to another. I did this outside of LR. It was too painful to then point LR to every new file, so I synchronized the folder instead. The photos are now there. I  use sidecare xmps so the xmps are separate files, and these are also there and all the changes to the raw files are intact as they should be. However, the History of these changes are lost. There is only "Import (<date I synchronized>)" under History in the Develop module. Snapshots also seem to be gone.

(This is on a new 24" iMac and v10.3 LR-Classic)

The Snapshots and History steps are useful. Is there any way to recover this? I assumed they would be in the xmp file and be re-instated when I synchronized. 

[DdeGannes]

What happened is normal. The things you are missing is because that info is stored in the Lightroom Catalog and is will not be written to the file. You should have used the feature in Lightroom to relink the image to the new location. The synchronize of the folder in LrC created a new import with the info from the file.

[dj_paige]

Yes, synchronizing is like re-importing, Lightroom Classic thinks this is a brand new photo that it has never seen before.

From now on, when you need to move photos, follow these instructions (and do not synchronize folders and do not re-import photos).

To get your previous history of edits back — and other items which may have been lost by re-importing, use a recent backup of your catalog file, made just before you did this synchronizing of folders.

[acharnas]

Thanks. The computer-darkroom.com link ("these instructions") is great! Wish I had read it before my move.

Actually I did mostly what they recommended, copying files first outside of LR. Except, big except, I moved files around into different folders on my new disk. So, now using the "Update Folder Location.." is a mess since it's in a whole different structure. And, because some folders I did move inside LR, they are moved not copied and no longer exist on my old disk. So I can't just Update Folder Location at the top level and start fresh.

Oh well. I did this to myself and will just have to live without the history on these. I expected that when I did a new import the xmp file would come in and retain the history along with the current settings. It did import with the current settings, so it's not a tragic situation, but the history was lost, which is a drag. Anyone know where this history is kept? Is it inside the xmp and it's just not getting used, or is it stored somewhere else in the catalog?

[DdeGannes]

DJ-paige provided that info in his post.

Quote “To get your previous history of edits back — and other items which may have been lost by re-importing, use a recent backup of your catalog file, made just before you did this synchronizing of folders.”.

[dj_paige]

As stated above, the history is in your catalog file and can be resored if you have a recent backup (except for the other issues you mentioned of moving photos around outside of Lightroom into different folders). You can still recover this history one photo at a time (rather than folder or many folders at a time) if you want.

Advice: develop workflows that don't require moving photos from one place to another so that once the photos come out of the camera, they never move again*. The asterisk is that there is one exception, when you need to move photos to a new disk or a new computer, then you move them, entire folder hierarchy moves but is otherwise unchanged. You do this by using keywords and other metadata to organize, and not folder location.

[Todd Shaner]

XMP files do not contain the following information.

Pick and Reject Flags

Collection Assigment

History

Virtual Copies

As already mentioned the way only way to recover this information is to use a recent backup of your catalog file. However, this has been further comprimised due to movement of files and folders from outside of LrC. You can try using the Find Missing Photos tool to rebuild the folder structure.

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/help/locate-missing-photos.html