Mobile downloads.lrdata and no pictures in the selected folder!

[Cam25502596k8yr]

Hello community, 

I'm having a hard time with my mac as I need to clean some space to improve its performance. 

I've found out that I have a huge mobile dowloads.lrdata of 49gb on my mac. I usually use Lightroom CC, in the past I tried the Classic one but i really didn't enjoy it. 

Now, this mobile dowloads.lrdata of 49gb doesn't seem to be connected to my CC, but when I open LrC this folder seems to contain 2000 pics but non of them can be shown, there are not even the miniatures.

I've also tried to attach all my different hard drives but those 2000 pics never show! 

I attach a sceenshot.

Do you know how to retrieve those photos? What should I do with this useless -maybe - huge file? 

Thanks a lot 🙂

)

[JohanElzenga · Accepted solution]

Apple changed the security requirements in MacOS Monterey. Go to MacOS 'System Settings - Security & Privacy' and add Lightroom Classic and Photoshop to "Full Disk Access". Click on the lock icon to unlock the settings, then click on the plus icon to add Lightroom Classic and/or Photoshop if it isn't already listed. If it is listed, then just enable the checkbox. See also Quick Tips: How to give Full Disk Access to Lightroom Classic on macOS

[Cam25502596k8yr]

Hello Johan,

Thank you so much for your reply! 

I followed your instructions allowing LrC to have full disk access. Unfortunately, nothing has changed, I 'm still not able to see the content of the folder... 

Any other idea? 

Thank you 😉

CAm

[JohanElzenga · Accepted solution]

The folders inside MobileDownloads are shown as missing, so that could mean something is corrupt. What you can do is the following. In the Finder, not in Lightroom Classic, right-click on the MobileDownloads file and choose 'Show Package Contents'. That will open it as a folder, allowing you to retrieve the images by moving them out of the package and into a normal folder.

On the other hand, you can probably simply trash this file. If you tried Lightroom Classic some time ago, then the 2000 images in this package will be images that Lightroom Classic downloaded from the cloud when you enabled sync for its catalog. That means that these are all just copies of images that you already have in Lightroom desktop.

[Cam25502596k8yr]

Hello again Johan,

It finally worked! Thank you so much for your help. 

Have a wonderful day 😉

CAm

[defaultlibgo0176b4f]

Hi Johan,

I follow your steps. All seems good except I have to re-link every image one at a time. I have thousands of images that need to be done. Is there anyway I can re-link at a mass?

Appreciated of your advice.

[JohanElzenga]

You can relink folders instead of individual images. Right-click on the folder (that will be shown as 'missing' with a question mark) and choose 'Find Missing Folder'. In the dialog that follows navigate to the new location of this folder and select it. Done. The folder and all its subfolders (and all the images in those folders) will be relinked.

[defaultlibgo0176b4f]

Hi John,

It seems I have different problem here. When I right click on the folder, I don't see 'find missing folders' at all.

In each folder, there are several images with exclamation marks. Right now, I can only re-link each image one at a time by clicking on the exclamation mark.

And I have thousands of images (scatter around many different folders) to re-link. The screenshots just show you some examples.

Have I missed something in my steps?

[JohanElzenga]

Your screenshot shows the collections panel, not the folder panel. Collections can't be missing, folders can. The screenshot does look like the missing images may be duplicates however. If that is the case then you can simply remove them from the catalog.

[defaultlibgo0176b4f]

Hi John,

The images with exclamation marks are not duplicate. They are missing.

I just manually re-linked both missing images in this collection folder. They work well now.

But again, I have to re-link one image at a time. I would like to find a better way to do it at a mass.

[JohanElzenga]

Like I said, you do not see a missing folder question mark because you are not in a folder but in a collection. There is no such thing as a 'collection folder'. A collection is never missing because it only exists inside the catalog. To find in which folder Lightroom thinks these missing images are, select one of them and then choose 'Photo - Go to folder in Library'. Lightroom will show you its folder, and if that folder has a question mark then you can relink that entire folder.

If that is not possible then look at the bottom of the dialog you get when you relink a single image. There is a checkbox 'Find Nearby Missing Photos'. Check that box and Lightroom will try to relink the other missing images that should be in the same folder.

[defaultlibgo0176b4f]

Hi John,

Finally everything works fine now.

As I got thousands of images, it took quite bit time to synchronize. Once the process is complete, everything looks fine now.

Thanks alot for your help!