recovering files from new external drive

[BKFC]

My daughter has been using Lightroom CC (MacOS) with storage to a NAS that she does not own.  Recently she lost use of the NAS but got a portable external drive with the LRCC folders copied to it.  When she starts LRCC, there's a pop-up that says "reconnect drive," which she can no longer do.  Is there a way to point LRCC to the new external drive without losing the connection to her previous photo edits?  Of course she can also switch to LR Classic (which I use) but may then also lose the edits.

Also (related) we cannot locate the LRCC catalog on her Mac.

[Theresa J]

The good news is that Lightroom stores master files and edits in the cloud, not on a hard drive. The NAS drive had a local sync of the cloud, because local storage was turned on in the Lightroom preferences. Now the NAS is gone and Lightroom is still looking for it. Go to Lightroom preferences, local storage tab, and change the location by browsing to the new drive. Or, simply turn off the local storage. It's not needed for backup. Local storage allows you to work on your images without a good internet connection. 

Here's more information about local storage. https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-cc/using/preferences.html#:~:text=dialog%20in%20Lightroom.-,Choose...

[BKFC]

The situation is a little more complicated.  Because of the size of her collection (1.6 TB) she opted to store her originals locally on the NAS (accompanied by warnings from Adobe), so there are no originals in the cloud.  She has the original (RAW) files on other devices.  The question is how to recover the database structure including the metadata already generated from previous LR sessions..  There are no sidecar files, but the metadata must reside on a local LR file or on the external drive (I can't discover where).  So it's important to restore the database (raw files plus the metadata) and not simply read the raw files back in as entirely new photos.

Also, the top-level name of the file structure on the new drive may be different, but underneath it should be whatever LR is looking for.

[Theresa J]

Until just this month, Lightroom required images to be in a Cloud. Lightroom is a cloud. Choosing the option to store images on a local device creates a synced copy. It does NOT move the files out of the cloud.

Are you certain your daughter used Lightroom and not Lightroom Classic?

Have you logged into Lightroom at lightroom.adobe.com?

[BKFC]

I use LIghtroom Classic and the interface for her is different.  I'm aware of the mantra Lightroom=Cloud (full stop), but the fact is that she started using it (I think choosing, incorrectly, not to use Classic) and everything was fine until she hit the cloud storage quota, and was unwilling to spend whatever Adobe charges for 1.6 TB of photo storage space.  At that point, there was an option to store locally.  There were warnings about what could and could not be done or available, but she was able to continue with photo edits and labeling.  Lightroom did not forbid adding any more photos beyond the cloud quota.  Clearly what was on the local drive at that point was not in the cloud because she was unwilling to pay for extra cloud storage.

I am recommending that she eventually switch to Classic, but for now, the question is how to recover the metadata and associate it with the original photos, given a copy of the external hard drive that she was working from, and whatever Lightroom file in her Mac Pictures folder (such as Lightroom Library.lrlibrary) went with that.

[Theresa J]

Sync a Lightroom Classic catalog to Lightroom and all metadata will be pulled into the Classic catalog. From there she can fix any broken links to the images. 

[BKFC]

Thanks but I'm afraid I can't get that to work as desired.  If I go to LIghtroom Classic and select 'sync' in the upper-right corner, it looks for information in the cloud.  If I delete the cloud photos via the website and try to sync, it says there are no photos to sync.  From this I tentatively conclude that the metadata does not live in the Lightroom catalog (the folder Lightroom Library.lrlibrary on a Mac) but actually in the cloud.  Or at least I can't force Lightroom to read the catalog instead of look in the cloud.  But perhaps I'm missing something.

[Theresa J]

Yes. The information resides in the cloud. That is what I have been saying all along. Is it possible the deleted photos are still in the deleted album. They stay there for 60 days (I think) before they are permanently deleted. Use the Lightroom app, or Lightroom on the web to restore whatever is in the deleted collection.