Photoshop Elements 2020 Missing files macOS 10.14.6 Mojave

[anthonyb26309788]

I'm brand new to Photoshop Elements and I'm using the 2020 version for Mac.  In Organizer I imported all of the photos/videos from a folder.  I've allowed face recognition to complete and I got everyone named, added tags to many of my photos and backed everything up to an external hard drive.  After several days I've come back to work on adding more tags and Organizer tells me files are missing.  Everything is still in the folder I originally imported it from in my home folder but still it says 6 files are missing: theme1.theme, theme2.theme, theme3.theme, etc. all the way to theme6.theme.  I have no idea what these files are and I can't find them in Finder nor can Organizer find them when it searches.  What I'd like to do is delete the references to these files but I can't figure out how to do it.  I've attached a screenshot of the Reconnect Missing Files window.  I'm on macOS 10.14.6 Mojave if that matters.  Looked online (Google) and in Organizer help but not seeing the answer.  Any help would be very much appreciated.

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[Sahil.Chawla]

Hi there,

Sorry to hear about the missing files, could you please have a look at this article and let us know if it helps? https://helpx.adobe.com/in/elements-organizer/using/troubleshooting-catalog-issues.html#reconnect_mi...

Regards,
Sahil

[anthonyb26309788]

Thanks for your reply. I actually viewed that document before I posted my question here. The only section to my understanding that could have applied was Reconnect missing files in a catalog. File > Reconnect > Missing Files is what brings me to that picture I posed with my question. I can’t browse to the missing documents because they don’t exist and, as far as I know, they never have existed. I let Organizer search for them but it doesn’t find them either. So I can’t reconnect. The files aren’t offline either because all the photos/videos I’ve added to my catalog are from the same folder that’s still present in my home folder with no changes made to it. Ideally I’d like to delete the references to the missing files but I can’t figure out how to do it.

Thanks again.

[MichelBParis · Accepted solution]

To remove all references to missing files in your catalog, in the organizer, do a search for missing files (menu Find >> missing files). This will show the thumbnails of the missing files in the browsing space. Select all and go to 'reconnect missing files'. In that dialog you get the list and on the top bar, you have a small icon with three horizontal bars. That icon opens a menu which lets you 1) select all, 2) delete all.

The 'missing' files are 'themes' images installed with Elements. You have used the global import option which has a tendency to import any media file including those which you should never deal with.

[anthonyb26309788]

Thank you so much! This is exactly what I was looking for.

[Greg_S.]

 When does the missing files dialog appear?  I've used every version of the Organizer since version 3 and I have never seen this issue.  The files that are supposedly missing in your catalog are program files that are normally contained in a catalog Themes folder.  They don't appear to be of a file format that would appear in a catalog grid.  Do they appear in your grid?

This may be a Mac issue that I am totally unqualified to address.  You say that you imported photos/videos from a folder.  Which folder was that?  Was it a backup or Apple Photos folder?  As I undertand it, the Organizer is not compatible with Apple's backup system folder.

[anthonyb26309788]

I've been replying via email but I just received a notice that it didn't work so replying from website now.  Sorry if this gets duplicated.

Before Elements I had all my photos/videos in Photos on my Mac. My first import was from the Photos library. That brought in a separate *.mov file for every live picture (iPhone) that I didn’t want so I eventually exported everything again & this time I deleted all those small *.mov files before I imported into Organizer.

Something is really weird with my computer or Elements installation because I’ll be working on a photo and suddenly Organizer can’t find it. Then a LOT of my photos can’t be found. I close Organizer out & relaunch & the problem is resolved. To confirm it’s resolved I go to File > Reconnect > All Missing Files and it tells me there are no missing files to reconnect so I can go back to work again.

That was until this last time when it said the theme files were missing. At that point I didn’t yet know about Find > All Missing Files so I hunted for the missing theme files and found them at: Users⁩ ▸ ⁨anthonyburner⁩ ▸ ⁨Library⁩ ▸ ⁨Application Support⁩ ▸ ⁨Adobe⁩ ▸ ⁨Elements Organizer⁩ ▸ ⁨Catalogs⁩ ▸ ⁨My Catalog⁩ ▸ themes. I copied the folder to the spot where Organizer was looking for them then restarted Organizer & it now says no missing files to reconnect again.

Out of curiosity I temporarily moved the themes folder to a different location so Organizer again thought them to be missing. Then I went to Find > All Missing Files and it didn’t list anything as missing. Weird. Then I moved the themes folder back, restarted Organizer & all is well again. Just wish I knew why Organizer sometimes thinks until I restart the application that my media is missing. All files are stored on the iMac’s internal SSD and nothing has ever been offline or moved.

Thanks very much!

[Phinny]

What good is useful trivia unless it's shared right?  For what it's worth, in case you ever run into it, I've also seen the name hamburger icon used to identify the small icon with three horizontal bars.