Photos vanished after importing back to catalog

[Khadrelt]

Something really strange just happened. I have a folder with subfolders , each containing several hundred photos. I was working in one of the subfolders, which contained a mixture of PNG, JPG, and JXL photos. Of the 350 photos, 14 were PNG. Here's a breakdown:

1. I filtered to show only PNG files.
2. Selected all of them and ran an export that converts them to JXL and imports them back into the catalog.
3. After the conversion/import was complete, I selected the PNG files again and used the Remove command to delete them from disk.
4. Suddenly, those 14 newly imported JXL photos are thr ONLY photos that will show up in my catalog. Everything else has vanished—and not only from that subfolder, but from ALL the subfolders in the parent folder.

I can't figure out what's going on. If I try to synchronize the folder, it shows that it will import 336 photos, but when the import window comes up there's nothing there because it thinks all the photos are duplicates.

If I use the Find All Missing Photos command, none of them show up in it. All the photos are still in the original folders on my hard drive. I did not mess with the files or folders outside of Lightroom at all. I didn't merge any libraries. It was just a simple process I've done dozens of times before without incident. I tried closing Lightroom and reopening with no success, and testing the integrity of the catalog did nothing.

So now I don't know how to make all those photos show up again. No view filters are on, no 'missing' warnings, they just aren't showing up at all. Except for those 14 JXLs. I am missing about 3,000 photos from my catalog now. I have a backup catalog but I was in the middle of making hundreds of edits on those photos when this happened and really don't want to have to start over. 

I'm on an M2 Macbook Pro running MacOS 26.0.1.

[dj_paige]

Find missing photos command will not solve this problem.

You need to search for these photos in the LrC Library Module (or at least, search for one of them) by following all four of these steps. Let us know what you find at the end of the search. 

1. Click on All Photographs (its on the left under Catalog)
2. Turn off all filters (Ctrl-L once or twice)
3. Expand All Stacks (Photo->Stacking->Expand All Stacks)
4. In the Filter Bar, search for a photo by File name

[Khadrelt]

The photos are still there. I can see them in the All Photos section. Now, how can I get them to show up in their own folders again?

[dj_paige]

Good question!

Step 1 — For 1 of these 3000 photos, I want you to confirm that there are now two copies of this photo when viewed by your Operating System (Mac Finder or Windows Explorer). The folder of the found photos can be determined in LrC by right-clicking on the photo and selecting "Show in Explorer" or "Show in Finder". I will call this folder Folder A. Then you also need to look using Finder or Explorer in the folder you thought it was in, but LrC didn't find it there, I will call this Folder B.

IF YOU DON'T FIND TWO COPIES IN YOUR OPERATING SYSTEM, THEN STOP HERE. DO NOT PERFORM THE REST OF THE STEPS.

Step 2 — Again, right click on the photo in LrC and select "Go to Folder in Library". The folder LrC thinks the photo is in should be highlighted in the Folder panel (you may have to scroll up or down to find the highlighted folder). 

Step 3 — In your operating system, rename this folder found in Step 1 called Folder A. A question mark should appear on Folder A in the LrC Folder Panel.

Step 4 — Right click on folder A in the LrC Folder Panel and select "Find Missing Folder". Select what I called folder B.

[Khadrelt]

There's only 1 copy of each photo. They're all in the folders they should be in in the Finder. They just won't show up in those folders in LR.

[dj_paige]

I wrote: The folder of the found photos can be determined in LrC by right-clicking on the photo and selecting "Show in Explorer" or "Show in Finder"

What folder does it show up in when you do this? (I want to know the full folder path)

What folder do you mean when you say "They're all in the folder the should be in"? (I want to know the full path name)

[Khadrelt · Accepted solution]

Let me start this off by saying I accidentally fixed it. I'll explain how.

The folder structure in Lightroom is the same as in the Finder: '/Volumes/Master/Photos/2024/09' The photos are in this folder in the Finder. They do not appear anywhere else on any volume, just that one folder, which is where they're supposed to be.

Interestingly, if I select the folder 'Photos' in LR, all of the photos show up in the list. And if I select one of the photos from the '09' folder, the Metadata inspector on the right side shows that the image is indeed in the 09 folder. However, if I click on the 09 folder, no photos show up. The main viewer just says 'No folders in selected Folder.'

Now here's the part where I fixed it. I noticed that in LR, a new '09' folder had appeared nested under the 'Photos' folder, which contained the same 14 photos I had converted to JXL in the first place. It appeared identical to the original '09' folder inside the '2024' folder. This extra folder did not appear in the Finder, only in LR, and the photos themselves were not duplicated—selecting 'Show in Finder' in either folder opened the original '09' folder in the Finder.

Perhaps a little recklessly, I right-clicked this phantom folder and removed it. And boom, everything started showing up properly again. Totally normal, as if none of this ever happened. I just can't for the life of me figure out how it happened in the first place.

So thanks for the help. I've made another backup of the catalog, just in case, and am moving forward from here.