Pictures will not "copy to a file because it is not writable"

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
February 11, 2024
2 replies
690 views

Hi. I recently all the sudden was not able to get my photos from my camera card to lightroom. I was finally able to figure out a work-around by clicking "add" instead of copy to my external hard drive, but I take a lot of photos and need to put them on my external hard drive. When I try to do that, it says "pictures will not copy a file because it is not writable".

Any help is SO appreciated -- this is part of my income and I am so frustrated. Thanks.

macOS

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JohanElzenga

Community Expert

When I try to do that, it says "pictures will not copy a file because it is not writable".

By @Ashley35384874gozq

No, it will have said "pictures will not copy to a folder because it is not writable". The name of that folder was probably also mentioned. What folder did you choose as destination for the images? Lightroom Classic does not have permissions to write to just every folder on your hard disk. Some folders are off-limits.

-- Johan W. Elzenga

A

Ashley35384874gozqAuthor

Participating Frequently

The exact message is "Could not copy a file to the destination folder because it is not writable". Then it says 1-126. So all the photos.

I checked the external hard drive and it does have read + write permissions. What is weird is when the camera card used to come up, the pictures would come up immediately but it now also makes me go find the source. This came out of no where! I did not change anything.

JohanElzenga

Community Expert

Hi, included above! Please let me know if this helps figure out the problem. Thank you.

The above screenshot is not the import dialog. It is the error message after you tried to import and it failed. Click on the Import button in the lower left corner and post a screenshot of the dialog you'll get immediately after you clicked that button.

-- Johan W. Elzenga