Skip to main content
N
nzorach
Participating Frequently
October 3, 2023
Question

Lightroom is renaming my albums?

  • October 3, 2023
  • 1 reply
  • 451 views

I have a few collections of images that I have categorized under different folders. It looks as though Lightroom-- perhaps in me switching between Classic and cloud- has renamed some of these by adding "2" to the end of the name. So, now I have a bazillion albums that now have "2" after them, even though they're divided into separate subfolders. This is thoroughly annoying, wastes a ton of time, and it never explained this to me.

 

I am wondering if it is because Lightroom Classic doesn't use the same file hierarchy system for folders, which is also baffling to me and makes the desktop version basically unusable because it shows all of my albums and folders in the same directory instead of showing them nested under sub-folders or albums.

 

Any ideas?

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    1 reply

    JohanElzenga
    Community Expert
    JohanElzengaCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    October 3, 2023

    Folders in Lightroom Classic are real folders on your disk. Folders in Lightroom are totally different. I don't know why Adobe always confuses people by using inconsistent names, but what is called a 'collection' in Lightroom Classic is called an 'album' in Lightroom. Folders in Lightroom are what is called 'collection sets' in Lightroom Classic.

     

    Of course that does not explain the '-2' behind the album names. Did you perhaps migrate your Lightroom Classic catalog to Lightroom, and then kept using Lightroom Classic and synchronized its catalog to the cloud? That could explain it.

     

    -- Johan W. Elzenga
    N
    nzorachAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    October 9, 2023

    I did everything starting on the cloud (from scratch, brand new account) and then set up Classic so I'd have faster access and a physical backup on an external SSD. When I view them in Classic, I don't even see the album/folders, they're just all jumbled together. I do not understand for the life of me why two different iterations of the same software would operate completely differently from a standpoint of something as basic as how files are named and how they are organized in directories and hierarchies.

     

    I've spoken with Adobe multiple times and they're like, "uh, I don't know, I've never heard of this issue."

     

    I cannot trust that Adobe won't screw up my files if I can't trust that they're going to maintain the same naming conventions.

    JohanElzenga
    Community Expert
    JohanElzengaCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    October 9, 2023

    Lightroom Classic is software that originated many years ago, way longer than any syncing or even the concept of 'the cloud' existed. It was never meant to work together with Lightroom mobile, even though this is possible if you know how to make it work.

     

    It sounds like you have set this up the wrong way, and as a result images are now duplicated. To be honest, because I do not know exactly what you did, I find it hard to give you advice on how to proceed. If you see all the images in Lightroom Classic together, then this could mean different things. One possibility is that you selected 'All Photograps'. That does show all images without any hierarchy. Another possibility is that you imported all the images in Lightroom Classic without creating a folder hierarchy and without creating collections. If you then synced this catalog to the cloud, where the same images already existed in albums, then that would be a recipe for such a mess.


    Perhaps if you post some screenshots of Lightroom and Lightroom Classic it becomes clearer what went wrong.

     

    -- Johan W. Elzenga
    Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement
    Using the community Terms of use Privacy Cookie preferences Do not sell or share my personal information ad choicesAdChoices