Same device shows up multiple times in LR Classic for images imported into Lightroom Mobile

[NEatonJr]

Over the years, I have had to Powerwash my Pixel Slate several times. Somehow, after any time it's gone through that process, any images I import into Lightroom Android 8.3.2 on it show up separately when synced to Lightroom Classic 11.5 on my 2012 MacBook Pro running Mac OS 10.15.7. I get the idea of a) them automatically syncing to LRC and b) the value of seeing what device they were imported on but this is unnecessarily cluttering things in LRC catalog. 

Adobe, I don't care whether the actual issue here is with LRC or with LR Mobile/Cloud or whatever... this just shouldn't be normal behavior. 

See images for example. All the folders identified as Pixel Slate are from the same physical device; the Slate should only show up once. The one on top with 18 images are things imported since the latest Powerwash. 

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

You can drag all of the images into whichever one is currently in use, or any other folder of your choice.

[Jim Wilde]

Alternatively, you can change the designated folder for downloaded images from the default to one of your own choosing (and can even use one of LrC's standard date-based sub-folder schemes). When you do that, you eliminate completely all those psuedo-folders/drives, all the sync downloads would appear in the designated normal folder scheme in the Folders Panel. 

The change can be made via the LrC Preferences>Lightroom Sync tab.

[JohanElzenga]

To build on Victoria's and Jim's replies: after you have moved the images, all those pseudo-drives will still be shown, but with zero images in their 'Imported Photos' folders. Right-click on such folder and remove it. That will remove the drive too. Do this for all of them.

[NEatonJr]

Johan, Victoria, Jim, thanks for the help. 

It appears to have partially worked. 

• I changed the location to a local folder (actually, folder on my NAS but mapped on the MacBook). I also told it to organize images by date taken. 
• LRC asked if I also wanted to move existing files and I replied yes. 
• After it finished moving them, there was an error message about two images not moved because they already existed (IMG_0001.JPG and IMG_0001.PNG, each of which were scans taken months or years apart from other files with same name, also scans). 
• The biggest issue - and the one that accounts for the two files not moved - is that it stored all the files in one folder, not in subfolders by date. See first image below for the settings I used; not sure why that didn't work. See second image for how it just used a single folder with no date structure (the Creative Cloud Sync folder under Home at bottom). 
• There were two other images not moved and it didn't report on that. Perhaps because they were an image stack? Also in second image below. 
• Also as noted in second image, just as Johan said, most of the pseudo-folders were empty after the move. I confirmed that I could remove one of them (will do rest later).

Any ideas on how to address the date/folder structure issue? If that can be fixed, I guess I can just drag the other 4 images that didn't get moved?

BTW, at first seeing it moved 110 images I was thrown as there are 382 images in the cloud but then it sunk in that only 110 had been imported from other devices and the rest were synced to the cloud from LRC. 

Thanks again,

Nathan

[JohanElzenga]

No idea why the dated folders weren't created, but with just 110 pictures it should not be too difficult or time consuming to do that manually after the fact. Select the Creative Cloud Sync folder, and make sure the images are sorted by capture date. Select the images of a certain date, click on the plus icon the the upper right corner of the panel and create the dated folder. Lightroom will ask you if you want to place the selected images in that folder, so say Yes.

[Jim Wilde]

Sorry, I should have mentioned that issue. When you use the "Move" option after changing the location for the sync downloads, LrC does indeed move all the existing sync downloads into the root of the specified new folder. Subsequent sync downloads should be stored correctly into the date-based sub-folders, it's just that initial move of existing downloads which doesn't work as expected. I pretty sure I reported that oddity to Adobe a few years agho, but obviously nothing has been changed.

You can deal with the situation manually (if only 110 images are involved it probably wouldn't take that long) using the method that Johan suggests.