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M
mh57858960
Participant
May 29, 2017
Answered

LR photos won't export to external drive

  • May 29, 2017
  • 1 reply
  • 1945 views

I'm trying to export a group of Lightroom images from my hardrive to an external to consolidate where all my images are saved.

When I try to export the images (within Lightroom) I see all of them but they are greyed out and won't give me the option to move them.


Any suggestions on what's going on?  Thanks for any advice!

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer JP Hess

    I don't believe you are looking at this correctly. You can only import images to Lightroom once. The reason the images are grayed out when you try to import them again is because they are already in the catalog. If what you are trying to do is move the images to the external hard drive consider doing it another way. My preferred method is to NOT use Lightroom to move images. I would recommend that you close Lightroom. Then use either Finder or File Explorer (depending on your operating system) and move folders of images to your external hard drive. Next, start Lightroom and locate those folders that you have moved in their old location. Of course, they are going to be listed as "missing". So you will simply right-click on the "missing" folder and choose the option to update the folder location. In the dialog that appears, point Lightroom to the folder in its new location on the external hard drive. That will get things all synchronized again and you're done. If you do this with a folder that has a lot of subfolders within it, you'll only have to do it to the one master folder and everything underneath will be synchronized in one step.

    1 reply

    JP Hess
    JP Hess
    Inspiring
    May 29, 2017

    It isn't clear to me what it is that you are trying to do. Are you trying to export or import? The only time that I know of that Lightroom displays grayed out images is when you attempt to import images that are already in the catalog.

    M
    mh57858960Author
    Participant
    May 29, 2017

    Yes, to clarify, I am trying to import images from my hard drive to my external drive.

    So my issue now is the physical location of the image file. I still want the image file to be on my external hard drive but can't see it there or move it there.

    Thanks for your advice.

    JP Hess
    JP HessCorrect answer
    Inspiring
    May 29, 2017

    I don't believe you are looking at this correctly. You can only import images to Lightroom once. The reason the images are grayed out when you try to import them again is because they are already in the catalog. If what you are trying to do is move the images to the external hard drive consider doing it another way. My preferred method is to NOT use Lightroom to move images. I would recommend that you close Lightroom. Then use either Finder or File Explorer (depending on your operating system) and move folders of images to your external hard drive. Next, start Lightroom and locate those folders that you have moved in their old location. Of course, they are going to be listed as "missing". So you will simply right-click on the "missing" folder and choose the option to update the folder location. In the dialog that appears, point Lightroom to the folder in its new location on the external hard drive. That will get things all synchronized again and you're done. If you do this with a folder that has a lot of subfolders within it, you'll only have to do it to the one master folder and everything underneath will be synchronized in one step.

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