Lost my Edits

[leeh46727583]

Hi all

So a while ago i accidently removed a folder with around 5 thousand images in

i imported them back in and see there were back

ive just realised all my edits on therm are gone but the keywords and gps are still there

what has happened to my edits and how can i get them back?

dont fancy going through 5k of edits

hope someone can help

[dj_paige]

If you mean "accidentally removed a folder from Lightroom Classic" then yes, re-importing may not make the edits appear. In fact, re-importing rarely solves anything. The better approach is to find a backup of your catalog file before you did this accidental remove, and the edits will be there. If you have a backup from before you did this, we can advise on what the next steps are.

If you mean "accidentally removed a folder from the hard disk", then you need to find backups of those photos and restore those to the location where LrC thinks they are. DO NOT RE-IMPORT.

[leeh46727583]

no i only removed them from lightroom and not the hard disk

this was about a month ago though so what would happen to everything ive imported and edit since?

thank you for your help

[dj_paige]

If you have a backup from before this accidental deletion (do you?), we can advise so that you don't lose more recent photos and edits.

[leeh46727583]

yes im sure i have the backup before this 

[dj_paige]

I think this will work best if you remove from the current catalog (but not from the hard disk) the photos in that folder you just imported.

Step 1: Unzip the backup, then open it in LrC

Step 2: Find the folder that was later accidentally deleted. Right-clickon this folder in the Folder Panel, select Export This Folder as a Catalog

Step 3: In the dialog box that appears, type in a File Name for the exported catalog (such as Accidentally Exported Folder), click on Save

Step 4: Launch your current catalog, select File->Import from Another Catalog, then select the catalog you just exported from the backup, click on Choose, then click on Import

[leeh46727583]

ok so by doing this i wont lose any of my picture edits ive done since that folder went? as ive done alot of pictures since

[dj_paige]

Yes, whatever is in the current catalog remains intact and unchanged.

[leeh46727583]

brilliant ill give it a go

[leeh46727583]

seems i dont have an older one that goes that far back

would the catalog be saved anywhere else?

even my time machine only goes back 1 month for some reason

[dj_paige]

Only you can know where the backups are stored. It is always a good idea to know what folder your backups are stored in, rather than having the backups in some mysteriously named folder that you can't remember; so make the folder where the backups are stored a simple name that is obvious. In my Windows 11 computer, the backups are always stored in V:\Lightroom Backups, so its easy to remember and there is no doubt what is in there.

Nevertheless, you want to do a search of all disks and all folders, using your operating system's search features, for .zip files. If any of the found file names looks like it might be a LrC catalog file .zip and is more than a month old, then unzip it and try it.