some edits lost when files moved

[scottkodak]

After I moved folders and re-added into lightroom I lost some information. Here is what I did:

Main image folder was located on my desktop.

Moved that folder to another location on my harddrive. (This location is my "drop box folder" so now my images are backed up in drop box.)

In lightroom library, I deleted the old folder from my desktop and imported the new folder via "add". 

All of the images seem to be there and I can see that the edits are there however, I no longer see the "Green Lable" or "Yellow Lable" on images that have been completed. And in the develop history, I only see "imported today." 

Is there a way to get that meta data back on these images?

thanks

[dj_paige]

Are you talking about Lightroom Classic? (You didn't say that...)

If so, re-importing the photos to Lightroom Classic is a mistake, and should be avoided. The proper way to handle moved folders or moved files is given here: https://www.computer-darkroom.com/lr2_find_folder/find-folder.htm. Better yet, develop a workflow where you don't need to move files or folders from here to there; import them from the camera card into their final resting place, wherever you want them to be stored, and don't move them again.

[D Fosse]

You can move files from within the Folders panel in Lightroom (drag and drop), in which case all edits follow along and are preserved. But you should be a bit careful. It's slow, and I'm told somewhat unreliable if it's a large number of files. I've found it works well when just a few files at a time.

[richardplondon]

I agree with other comments. So far as getting back the work previously done on these images, there are two possible sources that work might be recovered from.

The first source is, if you have a Catalog backup that was made after doing those edits, but before removing the photos from Lightroom Classic. That Catalog backup would still contain the full information: all the develop history steps, your green and yellow labels, everything except any further editing done to these images since the backup.

The second source would be, that LrClassic had written out the edits done within the Catalog, as externally saved metadata alongside the image file. This information when present, is auto read in along with the image when that's (re)imported. This information will not include any sequence of Develop history steps, but will include whatever latest adjustment settings were in place at the time of writing out the metadata. Also, any custom scheme of specially named colour flags would not be included in the settings saved out and therefore would not get read back in. There are further omissions too, most importantly IMO images' membership in collections, and the presence of any 'Virtual Copy' variant editing versions.

So while this writing-out of edits to file seems in this case to have retained some useful info (assuming you are right that the substance of your Develop adjustment changes have been retained) - that is very much second best. It is only a Catalog that can hold everything LrClassic does in respect of an image.

So it may be worth your while to pursue restoring that full information for these photos from a Catalog backup instead of going forward on the present partially recovered basis. BTW to clear the decks for doing this, these wrongly re-imported versions of these photos are more of a liability than an asset.