Copy link to clipboard
Copied
I moved from the images from the old external drive by dragging them over to the new drive, outside of LRC (you can flog me later). The old external drive has already been reformated, so I can't go back and do it over.
I have all my images, edits, and keywords, but all my collections read zero.
What is the best way for me to get them back? I have been backing up.
I have not added any new images, though have done a bit of work before I remembered the backups.
Mac OS 14.5
LRC 16.3.1
Thanks.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
Did you repair the broken links. the photos and/or the folders shown in LrC as missing, as shown in REF (1)
Or did you accomplish a new import (bad)
REF (1) https://www.computer-darkroom.com/lr2_find_folder/find-folder.htm
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
I moved from the images from the old external drive by dragging them over to the new drive, outside of LRC (you can flog me later).
This is the proper thing to do (if you did it right).
I have all my images, edits, and keywords, but all my collections read zero.
This seems to be a mistake, but isn't completely clear what you did. It seems like you imported the photos from the new drive, importing would be a mistake, that's why you have no collections. Did you import the photos? Please tell us, step-by-step, leaving nothing out, what you did after you moved the photos.
Until we know exactly what you did do, we can't really advise you.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
No, I did not move them correctly (total lapse on my part).
I simply dragged the images from the old external drive to the new external drive. I did not move them from within lightroom, hence the problem.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
As I said, dragging from one drive to another drive is NOT a problem. The problem is what you did after that, and although I asked you for details about what you did after that, you have not provided those details. Please tell us.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
And after you moved them outside of LrC, did you use the methods in the following to repair the damage?
REF (1) https://www.computer-darkroom.com/lr2_find_folder/find-folder.htm
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
Yes, I did use "find missing photos". I have the keywords and other info, just no collections. Thank you.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
Collections are stored in the catalog where you created the collections. Any solution that reconnects that catalog with its images will also reconnect the images to their collections. Any solution that leaves behind the old catalog will also leave behind the collection lists in it.
So…
The collections will come over if:
You copied the images and the catalog containing their collections to the new drive, then you used right-click > Find Missing Folder or right-click > Update Folder Location at the top level of the folder hierarchy to tell the catalog about the new location of the files. This would reconnect the images to the catalog, and the collections in that catalog would list all of their images.
The collections will not come over if:
You copied the images to the new drive, and they had current sidecar XMP metadata files that carried their metadata and edits, then you created a new catalog and imported those images into them. The collections cannot come over this way because the information about which images are in a collection was not stored in any of the individual images, but only in the catalog that was left behind. The metadata and edits come over because those were specific to each individual image, it wasn’t information about multiple images.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
I did do the find missing folder, no collections.
I did not create a new catalog.
Thanks for help.