Restoring Photos and Edits after External HD Failure

Report · Nov 07, 2017

Hello, I hope you can help me. Yesterday I was moving old photos/folders from my Mac's HD to an external HD using Lightroom. The photos and folders were moved successfully to the external HD, but before I could make a second copy to a second external HD, the first external HD failed. Luckily, I was able to restore the photos/folders from yesterday's Time Machine backup to my computer. I see the folders/photos in the same location on my Mac as they were before I moved them to the external HD, however, when I reopened LR I do not see the folders/photos in the original 'Macintosh HD' location within the Folders section of the Library module (where they were before I started moving folders). I do, however, still see the Smart Previews of these photos under the 'External HD' location within the Folders section of the Library module, but of course I cannot access the original photos from that damaged external HD. So, in summary, I have the photos restored on my Mac and I have the edits on LR (since they are still appearing as Smart Previews in the external HD section and I assume the LR catalog is still in tact). Now, how do I get the photos to appear back in the Mac HD section of LR, with all their edits?

Thank you in advance for any guidance you can provide.

Jessica

Report · Nov 07, 2017

Sorry, I need to correct my last sentence to "Now, how do I get the photos to appear back in the Mac HD section of LR, with all their editing history, key word tags, star ratings, etc."

Thanks again.

Report · Nov 13, 2017

I know this is going to seem confusing to you, but the Lightroom CC forum is now for a new program that was just released a couple of weeks ago that is primarily for cloud-based use, and different program completely. The "regular" Forum has been renamed, and it would be more appropriate for you to go there to get help:

Lightroom Classic CC

Report · Nov 13, 2017

Have you tried right-clicking the name of the folder, in the left-hand Folders panel and then selecting "Find missing folder" ? or possibly "relink" when right-clicking the smart previews?

Report · Aug 30, 2018

jessicaa99872300 wrote
Hello, I hope you can help me. Yesterday I was moving old photos/folders from my Mac's HD to an external HD using Lightroom. The photos and folders were moved successfully to the external HD, but before I could make a second copy to a second external HD, the first external HD failed. Luckily, I was able to restore the photos/folders from yesterday's Time Machine backup to my computer. I see the folders/photos in the same location on my Mac as they were before I moved them to the external HD, however, when I reopened LR I do not see the folders/photos in the original 'Macintosh HD' location within the Folders section of the Library module (where they were before I started moving folders). I do, however, still see the Smart Previews of these photos under the 'External HD' location within the Folders section of the Library module, but of course I cannot access the original photos from that damaged external HD. So, in summary, I have the photos restored on my Mac and I have the edits on LR (since they are still appearing as Smart Previews in the external HD section and I assume the LR catalog is still in tact). Now, how do I get the photos to appear back in the Mac HD section of LR, with all their edits?
Thank you in advance for any guidance you can provide.
Jessica

You probably need to reconnect the photos to their actual location. See Figure 4 and associated text here: http://www.computer-darkroom.com/lr2_find_folder/find-folder.htm