Where has Lightroom classic moved my files

[jiml1948]

Well I guess I did something stupid but all of my files from my desktop that were in light room have gotten moved somewhere so when I click on an image to move it into Photoshop there isn't any way I can do it.

[cmgap]

Have you used your system search (Spotlight) to locate any of the files?

[jiml1948]

Spotlight doesn't find anything except the previews in Light room.  I had my photo images and 20 some folders organized by date. The folders are still there the images are gone but the previews are still in Lightroom.

[JohanElzenga]

Just like your real desk top is not a place to permanently store documents, the computer desktop isn't either. It's too easy to delete folders from the desktop by mistake. Do search in spotlight as @cmgap suggested. If you can find them then you may indeed have deleted them. Do you make regular backups with Apple Time Machine or some other utility?

[jiml1948]

I didn't have them on my desktop, I had them in a pictures folder. I have some things on my desktop that have been moved to the cloud and that just sort of happened how I don't know can I get the feeling that's what happened here because everything in the pictures folder disappeared.

[jiml1948]

I had my photo images and 20 some folders organized by date. The folders are still there the images are gone but the previews are still in Lightroom.

[jiml1948]

I don't know if this is related but a couple of weeks ago I realized that all of the images that I had attached to keywords had disappeared too.

[JohanElzenga]

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@jiml1948 wrote:

I had my photo images and 20 some folders organized by date. The folders are still there the images are gone but the previews are still in Lightroom.

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Do you have Apple's iCloud Drive enabled? I believe it has an option to move files to the cloud if your local disk space is getting low. The desktop is one of the places that get processed this way (and one more reason not to permanently store photos on your desktop IMHO). Lightroom Classic can't deal with that. It needs the images to be locally. I think that Spotlight should still find them, however.

So back to the question you didn't answer. Do you have a backup (that includes the desktop folder, like Apple Time Machine backups do)?... If not, then your images may be lost forever, I'm afraid.

[jiml1948]

I had a time machine back up and got my files back and I went and looked in iCloud and the files weren't there so I just had something go through 20 some folders and remove images and I have no idea why. And now when I try and open up white room all I can get is a blank gray window and when I do the drop-down for modules, they are grayed, out I've uninstalled and reinstalled Lightroom and even used slightly older versions and nothing works. If I try and open up Lightroom preferences the app crashes

[JohanElzenga]

Check out this: 

Apple changed the security requirements in MacOS Monterey. Go to MacOS 'System Settings - Security & Privacy' and add Lightroom Classic and Photoshop to "Full Disk Access". Click on the lock icon to unlock the settings, then click on the plus icon to add Lightroom Classic and/or Photoshop if it isn't already listed. If it is listed, then just enable the checkbox. See also  Quick Tips: How to give Full Disk Access to Lightroom Classic on macOS

[jiml1948]

I am in Big Sur and I'm in the latest update and I can't get Lightroom to do anything other than a blank grey screen. When I click on preferences from the menu bar Lightroom quits.  I just got finished doing the latest update and nothing changed.

[cmgap]

Please post a screen shot of the folder where your Lightroom Classic files are stored. By default this is in your Pictures folder.

[cmgap]

It looks like you are showing a copy of your pictures folder on an external OWC drive. Can you go to your user profile and look in the Pictures folder on your internal drive for your Lightroom folder. Try spotlight search on .lrcat and upload a screen shot of the results.

[jiml1948]

The OWC drive is the internal drive on my laptop

[cmgap]

Please search for .lrcat files using spotlight. Then show in finder and post a screen shot of that. It will be helpful to see where your .lrcat files and other required Lightroom Classic are to determine if they are where they are supposed to be. The problem you are describing happens when the core application files have been moved from their default location.

[jiml1948]

I think I got the catalog thing figured out I went back a few days and found a catalog that's reasonably close to what I had so I have light room working again. I had moved a few files around and so occasionally I click on a Preview that says the folder is missing and I have to go look for it. My question is:  my question is could I synchronize my picture folder and that would straighten some of the missing folders out there there are they're just not where the previews are? Or should I just work it out as I come to them.

[jiml1948]

 

[cmgap]

This screen shot is helpful to say that you have a bit housekeeping to do (understated?). Good that you found your files – better if you sort everything out so that you have one master catalog and associated files where they need to be with your originals safely stored on an external (with a backup of your images). It's likely your backup folder/files need to be cleaned up too. Continuing on this path will not be productive as you are likely to run into more problems. This is the best link I can post to get you started with learning the technical side of how LrC works: https://jkost.com/blog/lightroom-training-videos. In particular these few will be the most helpful based on your screen shot and description of the issues you have encountered:

Lightroom Classic –  Organizing Your Photographs

Quick Tip – Don’t Move Photos Behind Lightroom Classic’s Back 

Quick Tip – How to Copy Files to an External Drive in Lightroom Classic

Quick Tip – Synchronizing Folders in Lightroom Classic

[JohanElzenga]

Your screenshot is a bit puzzling. It looks like an external drive, but at the same time it seems to contain lots of folders that are part of your home folder and therefor should be on your internal drive. As if you tried to move your entire home folder to the external drive. If you did indeed try to do that, then I can imagine that will cause serious problems when running Lightroom Classic, because Lightroom Classic has lots of hardwired file locations.