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kathmac1511
Participant
December 18, 2018
Question

Lightroom CC - Import folder structure

  • December 18, 2018
  • 5 replies
  • 10578 views

Hi all,

I have all my photos sorted into Folders on my PC with Subfolders - eg. Birthdays - 2004 Sam, 2005 Alex etc.. etc.. there are hundred of them for holidays and family and so on.

In Lightroom CC - I cannot see where I can import this folder structure!  I can see how I can add folder by folder and create a new folder within LR CC but this is extremely time consuming.  Surely there is a way to import the folders in the structure that they exist in currently.. surely?

There are a lot of old posts regarding this but I cant see if there was ever a solution.

Anyone found a solution?

Thanks

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    5 replies

    J
    Jan27023445tc2y
    Participant
    November 30, 2022

    Will this functionnality be existing at some point. It seems so easy to implement... just trag a folder and import it with its containing pictures as an album... 

      JohanElzenga
      Community Expert
      JohanElzengaCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      November 30, 2022

      Nobody can/will tell you. Adobe does not comment on future functionality.

       

      -- Johan W. Elzenga
      cb4.tech
      cb4.tech
      Participant
      February 5, 2019

      I am a semi-professional photographer and software engineer with a PhD in Computer Science. I have been using Lightroom since its initial release in 2007. I have 50,000+ images in a year/month/important-event structure and many custom LR profiles. While traveling through Switzerland and France for two weeks and haven taken 4000 pics, I find myself on my wife's laptop having to sort and edit them for a friend in Paris. Of course, I downloaded the latest LR (LRCC) and tried to import these pics in my normal folder structure. Imagine my surprise that THE MOST COMMON FUNCTION anyone could want is non-existent in this latest version of the app!!! I will forgo the obvious questions and cut to the chase -- how is it possible that Adobe developers thought it was a good idea to eliminate this functionality from LR?!?!? I was forced to uninstall LRCC and install LR Classic to get my work done. Adobe, get your act together or I will be forced to abandon LR for something like Skylum Luminar.

        ccalberti
        ccalberti
        Participating Frequently
        April 21, 2019

        This is an understatement!  It looks like LRCC operates more like Apple's Photos consumer product, imposing its own organizing structure to the detriment of those of us who have tens of thousands of imagesm raw and compressed, going back many years.

          ccalberti
          ccalberti
          Participating Frequently
          April 22, 2019

          I have exactly the structure I designed and wanted in my 75000 LRCC library. See my post 4 above.


          Yes, but only after you recreated the structure. I am experimenting and have migrated my LR Classic catalogue over to LRCC.  I already see that LRCC has ignored my organizing folders in favor of it's date/month structure.

            M
            Michael Boreham
            Known Participant
            December 24, 2018

            I started from a similar situation. Top level folders which were mostly year but a few major subject. Second level folders holding image files. About 20 top level, 500 second level. 75,000 photos altogether.

            I imported them into LRCC by year/major subject. So about 20 imports. After each import I could move the just imported albums into a new Year folder, before importing the next year. Ended up with the 20 folders and 500 albums in LRCC. Laborious but workable. 500 imports would not have been (for me).

            It happens that the source masters are the referenced masters for Classic and have the xmp files in, but that is incidental to your question because my Classic not syncing.

              99jon
              99jon
              Legend
              December 18, 2018

              If you are intending to migrate an entire catalog Adobe recommends some preparatory work along the lines suggested above. See this link for more information:

              Migrate photos and videos from Lightroom Classic CC to Lightroom CC

              selondon
              Community Expert
              selondonCommunity Expert
              Community Expert
              December 18, 2018

              Unfortunately there is not.

              If you also use Classic you can create a Catalog, making sure you drag the required folders into Collections. Then Migrate that Catalog into Lightroom CC using the Migration tool (note, this doesn’t migrate hierarchical folder structures though).

              Jim Wilde
              Community Expert
              Jim WildeCommunity Expert
              Community Expert
              December 18, 2018

              If migrating a catalog from Classic to LRCC, you can use the right-click option on the top level folders(s) in Classic to "Create Collection Set...", which will replicate the folder/sub-folder structure as Collection Sets/Collections. When then migrating, LRCC will create Albums for all the Collections in the Classic catalog, though as pointed out, the Collection Set(s) are not migrated. So some manual work will be needed in LRCC, but at least all those named sub-folders should transfer as Albums.

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