LR Classic won't recognize photos on SSD

[jeremy_3332]

Hello All, thank you in advance for your help. I am running an M1 MBP with Sonoma 14.6.1 and Lightroom Classic 13.5.1. 

I am storing photos on a portable SSD where I have created 5 folders, each of which have a few subfolders in them with pictures. I have also mimicked this setup with collections and collection sets to mirror the folder structure on the SSD.

On my SSD, I have a subfolder named "Avery Swimming" under the sports folder, but when I am in Lightroom Classic and go to folders and select the SSD, the "Avery Swimming" folder is greyed out and contains no photos even though there are actually 60 or so photos in that folder.

How do I get these to be recognized and show?

Thank you in advance,

 

[AxelMatt]

Do you have already imported the appropriate photos in the folder "Avery Swimming" in Lightroom?

[jeremy_3332]

Yes, the photos are in the Avery Swimming folder on my SSD and I have created a collection with them in LR Classic as well but LR Classic continues to not find them in the Avery Swimming folder even though they are in there.

[dj_paige]

Lightroom Classic thinks the photos are in a different folder, not in the Avery Swimming folder. If you right-click on one of these photos and select "Show in Finder" (or on Windows it would say "Show in Explorer"), you will find out where Lightroom Classic thinks the photos are located.

[jeremy_3332]

Ok, I did this and see that these photos are ALSO in another folder on my SSD, so how do I move those from that folder to the Avery Swimming folder so LR recognizes them?

The same set of photos are in both folders so I still don't understand why LR doesn't see them in the Avery Swimming folder?

Thank you for your help and anticipated response.

[dj_paige]

The same set of photos are in both folders so I still don't understand why LRC doesn't see them in the Avery Swimming folder?

Lightroom Classic doesn't "see" photos. It is not a file browser, it is a database. It only knows about photos that have been imported. You accidentally imported the photos using Copy and not ADD. So when you do a copy, Lightroom Classic makes copies and only knows about the copies. Lightroom Classic does not know about the photos in the Avery Swimming folder. From now on, make sure when you import and want to use ADD, that ADD is indeed selected.

how do I move those from that folder to the Avery Swimming folder so LRC recognizes them?

In your operating system, delete the photos in the Avery Swimming folder. Then in Lightroom Classic, select all the photos and drag them into the Avery Swimming folder.