Skip to main content
Participating Frequently
June 10, 2021
Answered

Moving photos of a smart collection (coming from several LR folders) to another LR folder

  • June 10, 2021
  • 3 replies
  • 1481 views

How can I do that? I do not need to keep the directory structure. I see, say, 10 photos from several folders in my smart filtered collection on the screen and I want to move them to another Lightroom folder. The equivalent of a windows 10 search: I search, select all and drag and drop where I want it. It looks simple but I do not see how to do it in lightroom.

Perhaps somebody will have a better idea than mine knowing my purpose: a mess of files scattered everywhere that I want to reorganize in new folders (same drive) using filters. I have about 19,000 files that I want to put in about 30 folders (hence using about 30 different filters)

Thank you for your help

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer richardplondon

Just check you are clicking on the actual picture part of the thumbnail, and not on its grey border. 

 

BTW those of us accustomed by long experience to the needs of physical mounted transparencies and negatives may have to fight against some deeply ingrained habits, in order to do this. It can feel "wrong" or "careless" - as if that precious image area was going to somehow risk a finger-mark or a scratch!

 

Nonetheless, you cannot pick up an image by its surround.

3 replies

Rob_Cullen
Community Expert
Community Expert
June 10, 2021

How can I do that? (ignoring the advice above )

1) Select (highlight) all the photos you see in a Smart Collection (or even multiple selected Smart Collections)

2) Drag the photos (start with cursor on a photo, not a border) to a destination folder. Or [Right-Click] a Folder and [Move Selected Photos....]

 

If  the 'Destination' folder does not show in the Folder panel (it would need one imported photo) you can create a new folder-

To move the files to a new folder-

1) As above- Select photos.

2) [Right-Click] on a 'parent' folder in the Folder panel

3) Choose [Create Folder Inside  "parent folder"...]

4) Name the new folder, Check the option [Include selected photos]

[Create] -Done.

Note: By moving photos from imported folder to another folder, you are really messing with your folder structure -as in advice from @dj_paige 

You might be better using Export methods to create 'copies' to show clients, etc, or make Standard Collections from the Smart Collections and Sync the Std Collection photos to the Cloud for Sharing to clients by the Web.

 

 

Regards. My System: Windows-11, Lightroom-Classic 15.1.1, Photoshop 27.3.1, ACR 18.1.1, Lightroom 9.0, Lr-iOS 10.4.0, Bridge 16.0.2 .
Participating Frequently
June 11, 2021

Thank you, very useful. I would have never thought of this border issue.

Bernard

dj_paige
Legend
June 10, 2021

Here's my opinion, and I will point out in advance that there may be a lot of people who don't agree, that's fine, you can think about what I say and decide for yourself if you agree with me or not. By the way, I have seen plenty of people agree with me too.

 

I think the whole idea of re-organizing folders is sub-optimal, since Lightroom Classic gives you far superior tools to obtain good organization. These tools are keywords and other metadata, like captions, titles, GPS locations, etc. So, my advice is to leave your photos where they are, do not move them to new folders (later today or tomorrow or whenever you take new photos, you can import those into folders named by capture date). Instead of spending time moving photos around from one folder to another, spend that time adding keywords and other metadata, with the intention of using keywords and other metadata to do all your searching. You will wind up with a far superior organization than anything you can do via moving photos from one folder to another.

 

I have no idea what folders my photos are in, other than the parent folder is on my D:\ drive and is called "Nikon Photos". Lightroom Classic knows what folders the photos are in, so I don't have to. When I want to find photos of waterfalls, this is easy when I search for that specific keyword, I don't have to know what folders these photos are in, and furthermore, these photos can be in dozens of different folders, I don't know, but I can find them in a few seconds.

 

Last comment: I said "I think the whole idea of re-organizing folders is sub-optimal, since Lightroom Classic gives you far superior tools to obtain good organization", there is one exception. If you want all your photos on one drive and perhaps inside a single parent folder, then you can do those moves, moving entire folders to the new drive and location; so instead of wherever the folders are now, you could move them to be subfolders under a single parent folder. (I still don't recommend moving individual photos in this exception; move entire folders.) You can do these folder moves in Lightroom Classic, or you can do it in your operating system and then re-connect Lightroom Classic to the new location of the folders via these instructions.

Participating Frequently
June 10, 2021

I understand and agree with what you say but let me explain why I want to do that, more precisely why I have to do that.

I do not work and play on my own: I have bosses, clients, colleagues and friends and they all want to see the photos of course. Most are not inclined, do not have the skill/ knowledge/ the software/ the time to go through it all. But they can all open a OneDrive directory and navigate that.

So, like in many professions, I do all the "clever" preparation and present the results to the clients in the most digestible way possible, not in excruciating details on how it was done and certainly not telling the client he should do it himself next time.

I don't know if you will put me in the agree or disagree camp now 🙂 but your view is worthwile.

Kind regards
Bernard

dj_paige
Legend
June 10, 2021

I have bosses, clients, colleagues and friends and they all want to see the photos of course. Most are not inclined, do not have the skill/ knowledge/ the software/ the time to go through it all.

 

Always helps to mention these details when you present the problem initially; then we can understand the range of solutions open to you and won't present solutions that are not acceptable. So, your decision makes sense.

richardplondonCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
June 10, 2021

Just check you are clicking on the actual picture part of the thumbnail, and not on its grey border. 

 

BTW those of us accustomed by long experience to the needs of physical mounted transparencies and negatives may have to fight against some deeply ingrained habits, in order to do this. It can feel "wrong" or "careless" - as if that precious image area was going to somehow risk a finger-mark or a scratch!

 

Nonetheless, you cannot pick up an image by its surround.

Participating Frequently
June 10, 2021

You are correct. To move you need to get to the picture, not the border, despite the fact that the border is good enough for selecting. Pressing the classic CTRL key to copy rather than move has no effect by the way. That was unexpected.

Thank you for the tip.