Workingl with synced photos that "cannot be found"

[MPDAEF]

I sync photos from phone (Android 10) to computer  (running Windows 10 and latest LR Classic).  The photos are all on the phone and editable, and sync seems to be working normally.  However, many on the computer "cannot be found," though they are still visible; many others are normally editable, visible, etc. 

My best guess is that I have moved these photos into normal folders (not "from LR mobile" collections) on the computer and then later deleted them from there.  I'd like to bring some order to this, but I'm not sure how.

IF I remove them from the "from mobile" folders, won't they also be removed from the phone via sync?  But if I wish to keep them, can I get them re-synced with the computer so they are no longer missing (e.g., edit them? rename them?)? 

Obviously, your help would be appreciated.  TIA.

Gail

[gary_sc]

Hi MPDAEF,

There is no link between LR-Mobile to Lightroom Classic. I'm not fully sure how you got the images to LR-C in the first place but unless an image is ON the computer that the LR-C's catalog is reading, it will show the file is missing. 

What you can do is to import the full image onto your computer and import them into LR-C. At that point, you can put the image(s) int a Collection and sync that out to your cloud and this can be picked up by LR-Mobile on your phone to show. 

Alternatively, assuming that you have LR-Desktop (formally Lightroom-CC), any images you take with your phone will be synced up with LR-D without you having to do anything (other than to set the settings). But again, LR-Desktop doesn't talk to LR-Classic.

Don't ask.

[MPDAEF]

Sorry this is so long, but I don't understand your response.   My desktop app is called Lightroom Classic; the icon is LrC.  (This is NOT the cloud based version now called just LR.)

LR Classic syncs with my phone just as LR CC did.  Photos get synced from LR mobile app into the "From LR mobile" collection of folders in LR Classic on my PC. (Phone camera gallery to LR mobile on phone to "from LR mobile" in LrC on PC.)  I can then drag and drop any of them into any folder I choose in LR Classic, where they remain fully editable and can also be deleted. They also stay in their "from LR mobile" collection folder--so copied, not moved.  

I believe (but could be wrong) that deleting such photos from an LrC folder is what makes them unable to be "found" in the "from LR mobile" collection, even though the original synced photo is still visible in the collection and also remains (editable) in the mobile app folder where it started. 

If I were to edit or delete a photo from the "from mobile" collection on PC, it will sync "across all devices," which includes LR on the phone, yes?  I have some "cannot be found" photos that I don't want to lose, so I can't delete them from mobile collection on PC without losing them in LR on phone.

So, either I have photos I can't move or edit, or I lose those photos entirely.  What I'd like to do ideally is to "find" the photos I want to keep in the "from LR mobile" collection, but I haven't found any way to do that. 
(Even assuming they still exist in phone camera gallery, importing them without using LR mobile would result in a separate version.  Moving that into the PC's mobile collection, which then syncs back to LR on phone, would result in two versions or even a sync problem.)

I hope this is clearer.  Thks.
Gail

[JP Hess]

"From Lightroom Mobile" is not a collection but rather a folder. I think what you want to do is leave the images in that folder organized the way they are organized as they are downloaded. If you want to put them somewhere else in Lightroom Classic try just creating a collection and adding those images to a collection. That way you can organize them any way you want, but leaving the images organized and synchronized the way Lightroom expects them to be.

[MPDAEF]

It's listed under "Collections" though, and it's folders (subfolders?) are interspersed with other collections in the list.  (I don't sync all my PC collections with my phone.)  Copying a photo to another folder in LR doesn't itself cause a problem; it's just deleting that copy from the "new" folder.

In any case, even if I can manage not to repeat the issue (I can be careful not to detete any photo I don't also wanted deleted from LR everywhere), that does not solve my current problem, I'm afraid.  Is there no way to retrieve "missing" photos? Or do I just have to resign myself to losing them?  There's little point in keeping them without being able to use them.

G