Photo shows up in Lightroom library but is not on my hard drive

[maryp21020600]

I think I made a error while ioading photos from my camera into Lightroom. The photos show up in a greyed out folder in Navigator which has the name of the camera. The photos never went into a file with the date like all my other downloads have. I can see the photos but it is not possible to do anything in the Develop menu. I get the message that the file can not be found. I searched through my mac hard drive in pictures and this folder isn't there. I was just hoping that it might still be somewhere. I used locate and searched under the file name and nothing shows up. I think I need a miracle but I thought I would ask anyway.

[Jim Wilde · Accepted solution]

It sounds as though you've possibly used the camera card as the DESTINATION folder during the import (which still occasionally happens), so as soon as the camera/card is removed from the computer the folder/files are naturally now "missing", i.e. LR can no longer access them.

Do you still have the images on the memory card? If so, I suggest you remove the "missing" folder from within Lightroom (right-click and select "Remove"), then re-import but this time make sure the correct Destination folder is selected in the Destination panel of the Import dialog.

If you haven't still got the images on the memory card, did you use the "Make Second Copy" option in the Import dialog when you imported them the first time?

[maryp21020600]

I've already deleted the images from the memory card and I didn't make a second copy. I thought that there might be an outside chance  the images were there because they can be viewed in the greyed out folder.  I thought the files had all been loaded to the computer when I disconnected the camera but I did get a message that the camera had been improperly removed so I think it hadn't finished. I tried to load the images a second time and the only images that were loaded were ones I had not selected from the first attempt so Lightroom must have thought the images were already loaded. Unfortunately I didn't check this until after I deleted the images from the card.

[Jim Wilde]

Sadly there isn't much that can be done about this. If the card hasn't actually been reused, there's a good chance that a file recovery utility could recover some of the images from the card.

The images you see in Lightroom are only the previews that are created during the import, the quality of which very much depends on what you specified in the Import dialog. I think Adobe has a utility that could be used to create jpegs from the previews, but again the quality might not be high.

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Jim+Wilde  wrote

think Adobe has a utility that could be used to create jpegs from the previews, but again the quality might not be high.

Yep, I'd actually suggest Jeffrey's one, as it's easier to use. I wrote up instructions here: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/articles-page/accidentally-deleted-photos-hard-drive-dont-backups-can...

[Rick Spaulding -]

As Jim said, if you haven't used the card since this happened a file recovery utility will very likely get your pictures back.

Here is a link to a free utility that may help:

RecoveRx - Support & Download

Keep us posted...

[maryp21020600]

The photos are gone but at least I learned something about a way to recover from the card in case of future errors and an understanding of the Lightroom preview image. Thanks to everyone for your help!