Lightroom library spans two disks, help me unify it

<p>(I only have Lightroom 1.4; I don't have 2.x yet; it might matter so please keep that in mind.)</p>

<p>About a year ago I bought a new 750 gig drive and moved my lightroom library on to it. Everything was going great, but then a few weeks ago I noticed my 250 gig drive filling up again. I've been copying my raw images over to DNG when I import them. Turns out that the import dialog has a setting for where the files go, only I've never noticed it before. That setting still defaulted to the old location even after I moved the catalog and images to the new drive.</p>

<p>Is there a way to merge my files without moving each folder individually in Lightroom? I can't select multiple folders to move for some reason. My folder structure looks like 2008\2008-12-03, so I have a folder for each day I took photos. I take photos almost every day so that's a lot lot lot of folders with to move one at a time. Since Lightroom automatically expands the parent folder in the folder area, it's taking forever.</p>

<p><strong>But it gets better</strong> . For some reason, all JPG files wound up on the new drive, all converted DNG files wound up on the old drive (even though I never fiddled with that setting on the import dialog.) But if I have two 2008-12-03 folders, I can't move one into another within Lightroom. How can I move those around without moving files out from underneath Lightroom?</p>

 

<p>You can folders that have subfolders from one disk to another from within LR and it moves the subfolders and their contents as well. Does in LR 2 anyway. The DB will be updated to reflect the new locations. If you have all these dated folders centralized under a few master folders it should be easy.<br /> <br /> On your last question, LR will not allow you to move a folder to another disk in a location where a folder with the same name already exists.<br /> <br /> Most people will tell you that when using a library-based workflow you should vastly simplify your organizational structure in the OS, using fewer folders, and use tools in LR - collections, rankings, keywords - to organize. Still know what's going on in the OS and be in control of it, but simplify. I would go much simpler than you are even if I wasn't using a library-based workflow.</p>

<p>Sorry, first few words should have read "You can <em>move </em> folders..."</p>

<p>Right, but I don't have any subfolders. All my folders are primary folders. I thought I was being simple, I set everything up and just started importing. I store my original RAW files in complicated foofy file structures but Lightroom never sees those. </p>

<p>I guess what I'm wondering is can I move a bunch of folders at once in the OS and is Lightroom smart enough to figure it out automatically?</p>

<p>[[My folder structure looks like 2008\2008-12-03]]</p>

<p>[[Right, but I don't have any subfolders]]</p>

<p>uhm, if 2008-12-03 is a folder under 2008 then 2008-12-03 is a subfolder.</p>

<p> </p>

<blockquote>

<p>can I move a bunch of folders at once in the OS and is Lightroom smart enough to figure it out automatically?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>No, if you move them in the OS you tell LR how to fix the fact that they're now missing by right clicking on the bad folder(s) and choosing update folder location. You browse and choose the new location. LR will rectify a top-level folder and all of its subfolders at once, assuming they have the same structure as before they were moved in the OS.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>All my folders are primary folders</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Where are they? What's your directory structure for the ones you need to move?</p>

<p>i sent this as a PM but should be shared as every body has file managing problems<br>

If you are using a pc<br /> download ztree from its site<br /> Ztree is a file manager like the dos XTREE<br /> it supports about a million files<br /> and has long file name support<br /> you can Log many drives and hit f8 to split the screen<br /> and look at different drives on each one<br /> YOU can tag "T" or CTRL T ( all shown<br /> and copy individually or ctrl move ( all)<br /> or alt move ( or copy) to the same directory on another drive.<br /> It is slightly weak in UN-NESTING files<br /> wildows explorer will do that<br /> NESTING: some files are in <br /> g:\1old photos\ vacation<br /> and you want to move them to g:\vacation<br /> in a case like that mest to create a g:\vacation<br /> with the M key and then split the screen with f8<br /> and then move the files to the new directory<br /> -----------<br /> another goodf: I had d:\scanner and d:\scanners<br /> HOW TO COMBINE when there are lots of files below<br /> easy trick: copy or move the smaller directory to another drive<br /> and rename the scanner directory to scanners and move it back.<br /> if there are duplicates it will tell you.<br /> very very handy.<br /> <br /> YOU can rename manually<br /> but there is a renamer 3.05 that lets you paste a name and delete the old<br /> example . if I have a lot of songs and they are fenk sinatra, FRANK SINATRA,<br /> and Sinatra,Frank. You can type Frank Sinatra ( once) hit ctrl-c<br /> and paste i in the next song name you edit.</p>

<p>Okay, yeah, I see what you mean now. What was confusing me was that I had two top level folders that had the same name on different drives. So it looked like this:</p>

<p>2007 on Lightroom (L:)<br>

2007 on Media (E:)</p>

<p>with subfolders under each one (2007-01-01, 2007-01-02, etc.) I couldn't move more than one of the subfolders into another top level directory at a time. For some reason I didn't think of the 2007 folder as the top level folder, I was thinking it was the drive for some reason, but I see that it is a top level folder.</p>

<p>So what I did (that worked very well) was to move everything that was inside of the E: 2007 folder, to the L: 2007 folder. Then I started up Lightroom, clicked on the E: 2007 folder, it turned red, and then right clicked it and selected "locate missing folder". I selected the L: 2007 folder and it automatically found all my photos. </p>

<p>Sweet! Now I just have to do it for 2008, 2009, and 2000 (scanned images from one of the local labs I use). Thank you very much Brett that was very helpful. I never use Folders in Lightroom, ever, for anything, in fact, I've been using Lightroom since the betas, before they had Folders as a feature.</p>

<p>Thanks Walter, I'll have to look into that "duplicate matcher" functionality in ZTree.</p>

<p>Glad you got it worked out. It is strongly advised to not move files using the OS if they're in the LR catalog. Fine if you can keep it all straight and you update locations, but better to do it all in LR in the first place. It is advisable to get things where you think they're going to stay before you bring them into LR. LR file manager isn't quite as flexible as the OS, but it can do most of what you need. The LR renamer is also very capable.</p>

<p>Right, I think it was the multiple folders named the same that did me in. Why the JPGs went one place and the RAWs went another I have no idea. Sometimes it was me shooting RAW+JPG and sometimes it was multiple cameras on the same day, not all of which had RAW mode. Either way, all the JPGs went to the new drive and the converted DNG files went to the other.</p>

<p>Always pay attention to the "import to" settings (as is, copy to new location, etc.) every time you import files into LR. It can really come back to bite you in the ass, as you found out. Verify it every time.</p>