Barton, Those pesky folders in LR exist on your computer. You could start with a clean slate, but it means manually moving the images to new folders. You could do this inside of the LR folder panel, but I find it much easier to do with the Finder. Understand that if you move images around in this manner (outside of LR), LR will lose track of them. If you move images around, it's probably best to start over with a brand new catalog. You would first organize your hard drive, and then import images into LR using the 'Add' method. If you have developed the images and added metadata copyright information, you will want to save it externally from the current catalog before you import the images into a new catalog. The other option is to leave the images in the folders LR created, and organize your catalog with collections. Moving forward you can be more organized with your folder structure by using the Import Add method. I teach a Lightroom course. My entire first 3 hour class is devoted to organization and importing. Many of my students start over with their Lightroom catalogs after they take this class. I learned LR the hard way too, by starting over several times. I don't know if it helps, but you are not alone in your struggle with this.
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