I'm glad that you are set, Tom. Since this is the case I'm not going to try to dissect the process. I do want to stress that you do not and did not need to have the "automatically write to XMP" option checked for the import process and reorganization to work correctly or for you to work successfully in Lightroom going forward - I don't agree with that hypothesis (which can be tested by turning off the preference, selecting a photo, doing Cmd/Ctl-S to save the work to XMP to create the XMP file manually, moving the photo to a different folder, and checking to see if the XMP file moved.) Assuming you don't work in Bridge and Camera Raw (which you don't need with Lightroom) and as long as you back up your catalog regularly - don't ignore the prompt when you close Lightroom - you don't need to have Lightroom automatically write all your work to XMP files and Lightroom will run faster if you don't. Ideally you'll set LR to prompt you to back up the catalog once a day or every time you close Lightroom, and you'll only skip the backup if you haven't done any significant work. This setting is in Preferences (Lightroom (Mac) or Edit (PC) > Preferences. That said, if you don't have the discipline to do these backups, writing to XMP with that preference can save you as it does retain some of your Lightroom work (but not all) and can be used to restore that work from if your catalog becomes corrupted.
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