Consolidating scattered photo files into one big catalog?

Question

Short history: I've used PSE for many years for personal photo storage and management, from PSE2 way back when, up to a recent upgrade from 11 to 15. During that time, I've done many full backups to external drives (I never do incremental backups), gone through three or four Windows desktop PC and hard drive upgrades. I currently have about 24,000 images (about 150GB total file size) from 1997 to date, all under a single catalog but not all in a single main folder. After all these evolutionary hardware and software changes over the years (and partly through my climb up the learning curve about how PSE does file management), these 24,000 catalog images now are stored in at least half a dozen folders scattered all over my hard drive. This shotgun image storage situation worries me that things can too easily get lost or deleted. I'd MUCH rather have a single giant file of all images, in a single catalog. Of course, all file or folder relocates/moves/renames, etc must be done within PSE, to avoid losing track of the images - which would be an unmitigated disaster. And I'm not sure PSE can even do bulk renames/moves of files...?

I don't want to "fix what ain't broke", but is there a simple, safe way to consolidate my 24,000 image files (currently stored in six or eight separate folders) into a single newly-named folder and catalog? Is that even smart? Or am I doomed at this point to continue down this path.

FWIW, I'm running Windows 10 on a three year old HP Athlon P7, AMD A10 3.4 GB 64-bit processor, 12GB RAM, and a 1 TB drive. The machine, although relatively old, seems to run PSE15 plenty fast enough for my purposes. I use external 1 and 2 TB USB drives for frequent backups.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks.

MichelBParis · Accepted Answer

So long as you are doing frequent backups, you are safe.

Good idea : having your various folders under a single master folder and a single catalog.

Bad idea : Having all your 24,000 image files in a single folder.

Of course, all file or folder relocates/moves/renames, etc must be done within PSE, to avoid losing track of the images - which would be an unmitigated disaster. And I'm not sure PSE can even do bulk renames/moves of files...?

Yes Elements can do that safely.

The simplest and fastest way is to restore your last backup to a new custom destination. You create a new folder as the destination and restore. That creates a copy of both your catalog and media file trees. The original data is always available. Even if your files were scattered over several different master folders or even different drives, those will be restored under the new master folder. And that is highly recommended.

Storing all your files in a single giant folder is not really an advantage, and there are many risks, for instance duplicate file names in different folders. Whether in the explorer or in the organizer, moving files or subfolders will fail for that reason.

Renaming subfolders/folders is safer and much faster than moving.

Note that Elements lets you move a whole part of a folder tree to another master folder, but due to the above risks, it's recommended to do a backup first. So, why not simply do the restore to custom location?

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