Problems exporting from Lightroom to external hard drive

[Mark281761316gnm]

I have been trying to export photos from Lightroom to my external hard drive in order to make more room on my computer.  I initially have 195 photos I am attempting to export. I select all, give the files a custom name and start everything from the number one, but when I click on Export 195 files, it shows me three files I exported LAST week, and the 195 files I would like to export today are nowhere to be found.  I have been going around in circles, and even attempted to export another group of files, but it always goes back to the same three files I exported last week, and will not allow me to export any other files. Any idea how to fix this? Thanks in advance for your help. Mark

[Nancy OShea]

[Moderator moved from Using the Community forums to Lightroom CC.]

LR CC

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-ecosystem-cloud-based-discussions/migrating-lightroom-cc-li...

LR Classic

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/help/exporting-photos-basic-workflow.html

[JohanElzenga]

First of all, exporting images from Lightroom creates a copy, so this action alone will not make more room on your internal drive. As for the export problem, please explain what you do when you said "I select all, give the files a custom name". How do you give these files a custom name? Which version of Lightroom are you using? If you use Lightroom Classic and rename files in the Macintosh Finder or Windows Explorer, then Lightroom Classic loses track of these images and cannot export them. Is that what you use and do?