Re-installation of old catalogue into PSE 2025

[gardener179]

Have recently loaded my pictures folders and a PSE Version 8 catalog from an EHD onto a new Windows PC using PSE 2025. Everything seems to have gone well except that whilst I can see my pictures by folder in "List" mode when trying to find them in "Tree" mode nothing appears. I have checked the folder locations on the Desktop and used these in "Tree " mode, but without success. When reloading the catalog and converting to PSE 2025, I recall ticking a box to "retain the original folder structure". Is this the problem, and if so how do I resolve without starting again?

[gardener179]

After further checking I have found the pictures in "Tree"  mode but for some reason they have been saved in a folder C:\Users\mauri\Documents\Adobe\Elements Organiser\Users\Maurice\Pictures rather than C:\Users\Maurice\Pictures. How can I move these c. 70,000 pictures to the required folder location without losing all of the linkages within PSE 2025, and how can I prevent this happening when I carry out a subsequent exercise to transfer my older photos and catalog from EHD?

[Greg_S.]

@gardener179 said:  How can I move these c. 70,000 pictures to the required folder location without losing all of the linkages within PSE 2025

Does the current   C:\Users\Maurice\Pictures folder on the new computer have any content?  If not delete it from the My Folders panel.  Once a folder with that name doesn't exist, simply click and drag the Pictures folder from its current location to the C:\Users\Maurice\ folder.  Do this in the Tree View of the My Folders panel.

@gardener179 said:  how can I prevent this happening when I carry out a subsequent exercise to transfer my older photos and catalog from EHD.

The best way to do this is to Backup the catalog on the old computer and restore it to the new computer.  It sounds like you may already have done this because you ticked the box  to retain the original folder strucure.  If that is the case, the problem arose because you restored the backup to the wrong location.  You should have simply chosen the root of the drive on the new computer.  (But it's a little unclear from your post exactly what you did  when you say you loaded my pictures folders and a PSE Version 8 catalog from an EHD onto a new Windows PC using PSE 2025.)

[gardener179]

I first imported all of my photos into the Pictures folder on the new PC. This worked successfully and all are present. The problem arose when I subsequently opened PSE 2025 and loaded a Catalog from the EHD. The catalog loaded correctly, and was then converted to a PSE 2025 format, but for some reason it appears to have copied all of the photo files included in the catalog (this is only about 60% of the total pictures imported), to the Photoshop Elements folder within Documents that I defined fully in my earlier post. I've no idea why this happened, but if I delete my Picture folder as suggested in your reply I will delete the other 40% of my pictures not within the catalog. Can I just delete the folders within Pictures that are included in the catalog, and then move the pictures within these folders back to this drive using the Tree view in My Folders panel of PSE. I assume that if I do the moving of photo files within PSE the linkages with cataloguing data will be maintained.

As I stated, I'm not sure why loading the catalog resulted in duplicating all of the photo files contained within it, but I wish to avoid this happening when I load my second catalog covering the remaining 40% of my photos, particularly as I have not much spare space on my hard drive. Advice please?

[Greg_S.]

When a catalog is converted, no files are moved.  Did you do a backup and restore of the catalog?  How exactly did you load a catalog from the EHD?

[gardener179]

No just a Restore from EHD, where I selected the appropriate Catalog Backup, opted to restore to the Default location offered, ticked "Restore Original File Structure" and "Do Not Sync Media to Adobe Cloud". I think I will try deleting the appropriate folders in C:\Pictures and then moving the same folders back to this location within the Catalog. If this doesn't work I'll have to delete everything and start again, before loading my second catalog. When I do this is there any need to tick "Restore Original Folder Structure"?