Pictures of same MacOS folder spread in two PSE folders with the same name.

[Théo de France]

I use photoshop element organizer 2019 and MacOS Catalina.

When importing new pictures in PSE pictures stored in a Mac folder  already  having (others) pictures imported in PSE catalog, PSE import these new pictures but not show them in the same folder that the previous ones. PSE put them in  a new folder it creates in the left panel WITH THE SAME FOLDER NAME. As a result the folder tree has two branches with the same name and, depending of the importation lot, the pictures of a same MacOS folder appears only once in PSE folder but attached to one or another of these two branches.

How to have the same folder tree in MacOS and PSE rather than pictures spread in PSE duplicate folders?

I have tried to drag  new pictures from the duplicate folder to the original one : the duplicate folder had disappeared ... but PSE had duplicated  the pictures in MacOS by adding them a suffix "-1"

Using the "catalog optimization" features don't fix the issue.

Uninstalling/ reinstalling PSE , as recommended by Adobe support call center, don't resolve the issue even if upgrading to PSE 2020.

Creating a new PSE catalog (and loosing face tags of more than 50000 pictures....) don't work better : the first time you import the pictures of a folder I'm PSE the folder appears once... but if later you ask PSE to import new pictures of the same MacOS folder, PSE generate a duplicate folder and put these new pictures in this new folder.

Any idea of a way to avoid this mess? 

[Théo de France · Accepted solution]

The way to merge  that duplicate PSE folders without loosing face or location tags: 

- 0 - using MacOS finder,  create a temporary folder,  

>>  then , using PSE organizer,

- 1 -select all the pictures of the first instance of the duplicated folder and convert potential version sets to individual items 

- 2 -select all the pictures of the first instance of the duplicated folder and, still using PSE,  move it to the temporary folder you have just created

- 3 - check in the first PSE instance of the duplicated folder if there are some unconnected pictures. If yes, reconnect them (or if useless, remove them from the catalog and from the disk). Then, using PSE organizer, move them to the temporary folder

==> as a result the first PSE instance of the duplicate folder will disappear 

- 5 - Redo step 1 (convert version sets) , step 2 (move to temporary folder) and  step 3 (reconnect if necessary) with the second PSA instance of the duplicate folder 

==> as a result the second and last  PSE instance of the duplicate folder will disappear 

>> then, using macOS finder

-6- Check using MacOS finder if the original folder is empty if not, still using MAcOS finder,  move the files (not known / managed by PSE) in a separate specific folder  

>> Finally, using PSE organizer

- 7 - move the pictures from the temporary folder to the original  folder

==> as a result all the pictures of the MacOS folder will appear in the  single original PSE  folder

The root cause of that bug

could probably be a delay beween the updates of the folder tree and catalog in PSE and MacOS when importing new pictures in PSE (with the import features or with PSE editor), which  could generate sustainable inconsistencies in PSE.

I have noticed similar delays and inconsitencies when renaming a folder name in PSE, but they can be easily corrected by using the PSE organizer facility.