Can’t Get Rid Of Exclamation Marks

[micheleam]

I have loaded Lightroom Classic CC on my new iMac.

I had my current photograph selection of 43,000 photos on an external disk. I plugged this into the iMac and used Finder to copy all the folders to the iMac. Then went into Lightroom CC and used Import to bring all the files in from Pictures>Folders. Went perfectly, all photos there, complete with metadata and keywords.

Older photographs are on a separate disk. I followed the same process, transferred from the disk to the iMac and then imported wits Lightroom. All good.

BUT. When I unplug the older disk from the iMac, all the photographs then have an exclamation mark in the top right corner. If I right click each folder and try to link to the corresponding folder in Pictures>Folders on the iMac, the photos are greyed out. I can’t link to them. So I have 33,000 photos that only work when the disk is plugged in.

The same problem doesn’t occur when I unplug the newer disk.

Any help really appreciated.

Mish

[Just Shoot Me · Accepted solution]

You probably had Add added and the external drive selected as the Import Source.

That would inport the images and leave them on the external drive. Then you disconnected the external drive making LR lose contact with the images.

Try this.

Find Missing Photos—how do I fix it? | The Lightroom Queen

Or

Find moved or missing files and folders Computer-Darkroom

Or start over and when you bring up the import dialog window make sure the Source section, the left hand side panel, is set to import from your internal drive and the folder that holds your images.