How to get back edited photos that LR says have already been imported but are greyed out

[risman3795]

I was editing a batch of photos yesterday, stopped for a while, and today, before going back into LR (which was still open from previous editing session), I plugged in a Kindle to recharge it. Later, when I went back to LR, I found some of the images from the Kindle on the screen, but even after unplugging Kindle, I couldn't see any of my previously edited photos in Develop mode. Going back to Library mode, all of the (unedited) photos are greyed out and hovering over each of them tells me that they were already imported. Where are my edited photos?

[dj_paige · Accepted solution]

If the photos are greyed out and the message says that they are already imported, then you should NOT import the photos again. This will not help the problem, it will actually make the problem worse.

This is so important, I'm going to say it again. DO NOT IMPORT THE PHOTOS AGAIN.

What you need to do is find the photos in the Lightroom Library Module. You do this by performing ALL four of these steps, in order

1. Click on All Photographs (it's on the left of the Library Module, under Catalog)
2. Turn off all filters (Ctrl-L once or twice)
3. Expand all stack (Photo->Stacking->Expand All stacks)
4. Use the filter bar to search for one of these photos by file name.

Most likely, finding one such photo will allow you to find all of them. They are most likely imported into a different folder than the one you think they are in.

[risman3795]

Thank you!! That did the trick.