Will Restore Catalogue duplicate files already on the second computer?

[sylvia1152]

I'm hoping to avoid making a mess while moving a catalogue to my new Windows 11 computer from older W10. I have a full catalogue backup on external drive. But concerned that restoring might create duplicates, because nearly all the photos are already on the new computer, having been transferred when I was setting it up, with the same names and in folders with the same name on both. Everything should all match because they are synced in Dropbox. Will Restore detect that the files are identical and NOT make copies, or is there some trick to avoid 27K dupes, without deleting all the photos from the new computer?

[Glenn 8675309]

" I have a full catalogue backup on external drive. "   Unless you made that backup via Organizer it's kinda useless.

All the photos allready on the new computer?  Tuck them away in a folder or an external HDD till you are sure you have the organizer up and running on the new computer.

[sylvia1152]

Yes, I made the backup via Organizer. Good idea to hide them thank you.( It may be tricky because I let Dropbox sync everything automatically so I will have to figure out how to pause syncing or somehow move them out of Dropbox on all 4 computers.)

[Glenn 8675309]

I made the mistake a vout 4 years ago of telling organizer to find every image on my main SSD.  It even found icons programs used.   It was well over 300,000 images-- thankfully it was right after I made the SSD the main drive and still had lots of stuff to reinstall.

[Greg_S.]

You ask a good question, and I'm not sure I have an answer for your situation where you are both moving to new hardware and updating the OS.  How exactly did you move the photos from the old to new computer?  If you transferred the hard drive between machines, you may have a better result, but if you cloned the drive or used some other method, I'm not sure what will happen. 

Another issue that requires clarification is whether you have the exact same user name on both computers.  (Windows 11 generally changes it.)  Also, what is the name of the parent folder of your stored photos?  Are you using OneDrive?

My recommendation would be to restore the backup to a new parent folder.  Once you have determined that the backup has succeeded, you can delete the current storage location of your photos.  However, I am going to ping @MichelBParis, another Community Expert, who may have some additional insight on your original question.

[sylvia1152]

(1) I don't know much about how the files were moved from the old to the new computer, because it was part of a routine when I set up the new computer. I answered yes when asked whether I wanted to transfer folders to the new computer and hours later the new computer had all my files in the same folder structure. I will check your other suggestions (user name etc.)

(2) Using Dropbox not OneDrive which I try to avoid. Dumb question - on the old computer all the photos are in a file in the C:\Users . . . \Dropbox\PSE2021 plus many subfolders. So, to be clear, when prompted for a folder name I would use something like C:\TempPSE and Restore would set up the PSE2021 and subfolder structure along with all the photo files under that TempPSE folder? Then if that works I would delete the entire "old" folder from Dropbox, and from within the Organizer move the PSE2021 folder into Dropbox?

Thank you for helping.

[Greg_S.]

Sylvia, I don't really know too much about how Dropbox syncs the files on your desktop.  I'm guessing that you can include any folder within the sync operation.  If that is the case, you could do as you describe but simply change the desktop sync folder to the new parent folder that you will create for the restoration of your backup.

[sylvia1152]

Dear Greg - (I'm replying to this because for some reason Reply is greyed out for all other messages in this thread.) I managed to move the folder with all the photos out of Dropbox onto the hard drive in a separate folder, then Restore-d the backup to the new computer. I chose Restore Original File Structure, and after hours and hours that's all I got, the original Dropbox file structure is listed in the the catalogue on the new computer, but no photos were restored to those locations. So then I did what I thought would reconnect the photos to the files in the copied non-Dropbox folder, and then within Organizer moved all the files in that folder back to Dropbox. However, I forgot to take the new computer offline while all this was going on, so the files that had reconnected were all synced to the cloud where they became copies of the original. I've managed to pause the syncing process, but now I have a catalogue with a number of photos that are in limbo - can't tell if their thumbnails are just missing, or if the Organizer can't find them, or what.

So now it's such a mess that I'm thinking of moving everything to yet another folder outside of Dropbox, killing the new catalogue and its files, then starting over to Restore it again. But how can I get it to restore the photos as well as the original folder structure?

Sylvia, I don't really know too much about how Dropbox syncs the files on your desktop.  I'm guessing that you can include any folder within the sync operation.  If that is the case, you could do as you describe but simply change the desktop sync folder to the new parent folder that you will create for the restoration of your backup.

By Greg_S.

[Greg_S.]

Sylvia, I believe you can only reply on the forum if you are signed into your forum account.

I see nothing wrong with your plan of action. 

As for the photos not showing up in the restored folder location, you may not have been patient enough.    Did you receive a message that the restoration was complete?  Copying files via the restoration process can take a very long time, depending on the size of your catalog and the size of the files themselves.  I believe one of the first actions that the Restore performs is creating the folder structure on your hard drive.  The files are then copied to the folder structure.  If you interrupted the Restore process, you may well have seen only those files that had been copied from the backup up to that point.  It's not clear from your post, but if the files are actually there and you are only seeing generic thumbnails, that is because the generation of the thumbnails can also take many hours or even days.

[sylvia1152]

Dear Greg - Thank you for your answer. I did not realize I should wait
for the thumbnails. I did reopen the catalogue, saw a few more
thumbnails had appeared, so I left it open overnight and will continue
to leave it to do its thing for a day or two, then see where the files
lie. NP

[david_2984]

Restoring your catalog may still create duplicates if the software doesn’t recognize the existing files as identical. Some programs match metadata rather than just file names. To avoid 27K dupes, check if your catalog tool has a “match existing files” option before restoring. Also, testing with a small batch first can help—especially with holiday hours slowing down support!

[sylvia1152]

Dear David - Thank you for the warning. There was nothing about "missing
files" as an option on the Restore dialogue box, nor did there seem to
be an option to restore only a small batch, which would have been a good
idea were it available. [Note this is an older version - 2018 dressed up
as 2020.]As I replied to Glenn, I'm going to leave it going for a few
days to see where things lie, and then try to figure out how to
eliminate the duplicates. Unfortunately some of the files in the
catalogue are actually copies with the -1 addition, whose originals have
been lost to similar moves in the past (I started on a Windows 98
machine in with PSE 2003] so just mass deleting all files with that -1
will lose me a lot of memories.Thank you for the advice. NP