Finding missing photos

I recently purchased a new Windows 7 computer and upgraded to LR3.3 at the same time. I used Laplink PCmover to transfer my files over to the new machine. I was using multiple external drives to store photos, I installed a dedicated 2 TB internal drive for photos only and moved all of the images onto one location for LR to reference. I will use the external drives for backups. As others on this forum have found, all of my LR files were grayed out. After doing some research, I have a better understanding of how Lightroom works and how to restore.
I have been using the "Photo is Missing" icon on individual photos in the gallery with the "Find Nearby Missing Photos" selected. Sometimes dozens of photos are restored, often all taken on the same day and in the same folder. However, too often...they come back only one at a time, even though there are others from the same date in the same file. Any ideas on why this happens?
I have over 22,000 more photos to restore! Has anyone found a way to automate this process?
Thank you in advance for your help.

I structure folders for ease of back up as I would always use LR to locate image files, far quicker than any other method. I have one folder called original files, with another folder for each year , all files are imported into date based folder under that. This is backed up to an external drive every week and an on line back up runs every night.
I have the same structure for other types of files such as videos (I don't use LR for videos as I shoot in AVCHD) and use Bridge for these searching by metadata again rather than by using folders. Folders are a pretty poor way of structuring files a left over from out dated operating systems., so just ensure that folders are kept simple and easy to back up, use more sophisticated metadata based searches through LR or Bridge for locating files when they are required.

Similar Messages

Synchronize Folder problem - LR finds missing photos that aren't missing

A bit of background:
I decided to dive in and clean up a big 40K catalog I have. This involved:
Moving images around
Creating new folders
Renaming existing folders
Renaming all photos
All of this was done within LR to avoid problems. But now, everything is working fine, LR does not complain that there are missing photos EXCEPT when I try to synchronize a folder.
The strange this is there is no question mark on the images and when I use the Find Missing Photos, LR tells me that there are no missing photos.
But when I try to synchronize a folder (any), it finds all the images as new images and suggests to remove the missing photos (both matching the exact number of images). Obviously I don't want to do that and loose my edits...
I found some information here, it seems to be an old bug but no solutions work for me... I really don't want to go back and redo all this work. Is there a magic trick?
Thanks!

Thanks but this a completely different problem. You are referring to the "Treat JPEG files next to RAW files as separated photos" setting that I have unchecked purposely and I do not shoot RAW + Jpeg anyways.
Your issue is a normal behavior. LR assumes that Jpeg+RAW shooters will only required the RAW to be imported in LR unless you change that setting.
My problem was a very specific instance where the volume name did not match case with the folder names in LR. As soon as I fixed that, it went back to normal.

Finding missing photos when drive letter has changed

I have over 30,000 missing photos because LR only recognizes drive letters not names. All my drives have a master "Image" directory with folders and subfolders. Going to the LR online directory with name change and right clicking images and finding folder location does not work. LR does not recognize folders or subfolders in the drive with a name change. Usually none of the folder names are high lighted. By going to the "Missing Photographs" in the catalog menu and searching by file name I can find individual files but with over 30k missing files, this approach is not practical. I have an HP computer with Windows 7 and LR 5.7. How do I find the photos?

I think the most straightforward way to sort this out is:
1. Plug in all of your external drives. From the screen shots, it looks like you have at most 5 external drives of interest, 2 that are currently online and 3 that are disconnected. (I'm not counting the one external drive letter that has just one photo on it.) How many external drives do you actually have?
2. If you don't have enough USB ports, order a $12 USB hub from Amazon.
3. Make sure the entire folder hierarchy for each drive is showing in the Folders pane as described here. When you're done, each drive in the Folders pane should have a top-level folder labeled with a drive letter (as with your F: drive in the screenshot above).
4. Expand the entire folder hierarchy on each drive in the Folders pane by clicking the arrows to the left of the folder.
5. For each drive, find one or more folders in its hierarchy that are closest to the top that have a "?" on them. It may be the root folder labeled with the drive letter (e.g. "F:"), or it may be folders below the root folder.   For each such folder with a "?", right-click it and select Find Missing Folder. That folder should be somewhere on one of the drives. Use Windows File Explorer to help find where it is.
6. When you're done with step 5, you should have located all missing folders and told LR where they are currently located. But you may have missed some.   Do Library > Find All Missing Photos.
7. Pick a photo from step 6. Right-click it and do Go To Folder In Library. If the folder in the Folder pane is marked with a "?", right-click it and do Find Missing Folder.   Otherwise, click the "!" on the photo and then click Locate. Use Windows File Explorer to help find the missing photo by filename, if necessary. Repeat until there are no more missing photos.
8. Going forward, try to keep all your external drives connected. To minimize drive-letter confusion in the future, rename the drive letters of the existing external drives to start from the end of the alphabet, changing each drive letter as described here.   When you change a drive letter, you'll need to re-locate its root folder as described in steps 3-5.   (Windows tends to use drive letters from C onward.)

LR5 Find missing photos - search nearby won't work consistently

LR5 seems to work inconsistently when locating missing photos and selecting "find nearby photos".
It has succeeded in finding nearby files but now will only locate one file at a time....a very annoying and time consuming exercise!
Any suggestions please?

Hmm, I'm still not sure about your situation. But if the entire folder was missing (before you started finding individual pics), then it's easy to find the whole folder. You can see if the folder is missing by looking in the Folders pane on the left -- it will have a "?" on it:
Right-click on the folder and select Find Missing Folder.

IPhoto Library Manager hasn't managed to find missing photos after rebuild

I'm trying to repair what I assume is my pal's corrupted iPhoto Library. There are over 8000 images in the Originals folder, which is the number of photos expected to be in iPhoto but he suddenly discovered there were only 1200.
Having tried to rebuild the library with iPhoto Library Manager it is still only showing 1200 photos and I therefore wondered whether anyone can recommend any other solutions for trying to recover the missing photos?
As always, any help most appreciated
Kind Regards
Bernard

Did you try to rebuild with iPhoto with "Find orphans" option selected? If that doesn't work you'll have to start over with a new library as follows:
Creating a new library while preserving the Events from the original library.
1 - Move the existing library folder to the desktop
2 - Open the library package like this.
3 - Launch iPhoto and, when asked, select the option to create a new library.
4 - Drag the Originals folder from the iPhoto Library on the desktop into the open iPhoto window.

LR3 Syncronize folder finds "missing" photos that are not missing

Having switched to LR3 I made some new catalogs and syncrnized some folders. LR3 kept find a ton of missing photos though and I was sure they were not missing. SO I clicked on the "show missing files" button and sure enough it just showed me hundreds of photos that were not actually missing. I checked them by right clicking on them and using the "show in finder" option to check that they were indeed still on my disk.
Whats happening ? It seems to do it every time and I have tried it with several folders. Every time it thought it found hundreds of missing photos.

Melissa,
I did not upgrade my catalog from LR2 to 3 , instead I started an entirely new catalog. I was hoping then to import some old LR2 catalogs into the new LR3 one but alas that plan has fallen foul of the import bug that effects importing catalogs with the same folders in them so I cant do that..... but thats all in another thread.
I think maybe I was not clear enough becuase it sounds like you didnt quite catch my point. My point is that the photos are not missing at all, they ares still clrearly displayed in the catalog and I can double click them and open them no problem. I do not have to locate them at all. They are still there. It is just lightroom saying they are not there when i sync a folder.
So to clarify, when i syncronize,it tells me that X number of files are missing. If I click the button to "show missing files" all the photos that it shows, are still there. It does not display them as missing, it displays them as normal. Now this would not reall be a problem except that the sync default is to remove missing files. So if you leave that option selected, LR removes a ton of files that were not missing!
Does that make it clearer, sorry i was not so clear the first time.

Explain finding missing photos by copying to another disk and back

I would appreciate if someone can explain what is happening to my iPhoto file under Lion.
Here are the sequence of events in my iPhoto library of about 5000 photos and about 44GB of data:
1. I noticed that several photos would not display when I clicked on the thumbnail. I got a black triangle indicating no photo present.
2. I found this to be a random occurence in many events.
3. I copied my iPhoto file to an external disk.
4. Then I used the rebuild database option with all options checked.
5. The resulting database was rebuilt with many problems. The missing files were still missing and most of the thumbnails had a different orientation than the base photo. The base photo was basicly correct and the thumbnal was randomly upside down or right or left.
6. I started correcting the thumbnails and after several hours I decided that I would never get through them and the problems with the original database weren't as bad.
7. So I chucked the rebuilt database into the trash.
8. And then copied the original database back from the eternal disk.
9. Then when I got into iPhoto all my photos were in the correct orientation and!!!!!! all of the missing photos were present again with their thumbnails. There were no problems in the database.
So what happened? WHy did this fix the problem? What I did was a straight finder system copy from one disk to the other and back.

I now have to decide wheter to use this new database or try to fix the old one.
There is no way to fix the old one. That databse file is unstable. It would be unwise to invest further effort in it.
My suggestion would be
a: restore from a known-good back up if you have one
Or
b: Stick with the rebuilt library and try recover the missing 69 pics from the damaged library and import them to the new one.
Regards
TD

Relinking missing photo/exclamation mark

I have a photo that "can't be found" in LR and has one of those exclamation marks i the top right of the photo.
I have clicked on it and pressed the Locate button on the pop up message and comes up with a Folder "iPod photo cache". clicking on the Folder, it has a series of empty Folders numbered F00-F50, an Apple tv photo database and a photos database. I don't see my photo anywhere. I have clicked on a number of the folders and they all appear empty.
I thought that the idea was that the missing photos would appear so can you tell me how to find and re link it.
Seeing that the file is called IPOD Photo cache, I have plugged my iPod into the laptop but that does not appear to make any difference and the exclamation mark is still present and cannot find the photo.
Hope there is a simple trick that I am missing here and that you can point it out to me.
thanks
john

Missing photos don't just automatically appear when you choose the find missing photo option. You have to browse to the folder where you know the image is located and select the image. This will show Lightroom where the image is located on your hard drive. When the browser window opens in showing you the folder structure for the preview cache. These are previews are generated by Lightroom to facilitate the editing process. You need to use that dialogue box to navigate to the folder containing the real image and select the image. If you have a missing image, it's possible that you also have a missing folder. If you right-click on the missing folder you can choose to update the folder location. But again, you have to navigate to where the folder is located. Lightroom isn't going to find it automatically.

Can't reconnect 'missing' photos

After importing all my photos from PS Elements 8, taking the suggested defaults, I was presented in the Library grids many cells with the broken icon in the upper rh corner. Upon running the 'Find Missing Photos', I received a report saying there are some 13,678 'missing' photos. I then followed the procedure outlined in a help file to Locate the missing photos, which described their last path. However, there was no reconnection done once I completed this procedure. I then went into PS Elements 8 and performed a Search for one of the filenames that were reported 'missing'. The result showed two different photos, in two different locations, but having the same .JPG name. I recognized both photos as being valid, but wonder how to proceed with what seems to be a reason why the 'missing' notation, as I figure the software can't deal with dupicate filenames. I surely didn't expect this many images reporting 'missing', so seems there's plenty of recovery work to be done, maybe in the realm of renaming one of the duplicated images; eg. filename_1.jpg.
Have you seen this problem, and what would you recommend to fix it?
Thanks very much.
Fred

dj,
I'm impressed you're up so early responding to Forum folks like me!
OK, my Olympus DSLR is the E520 model with latest firmware installed. My version of Lr4 is 4.4.1, updated right after I installed the program.
Leave the disconnected photos to me, as I think there will be lots of work ahead of me to go through my plethora of saved media cards (my secondary backup sources) to bring in those missed photos.
As for the .ORF extension photos, here's what I've found (prety interesting).
Initially, I did a search of the new Lr4 catalog for '*.ORF' files, and got the report that no files existed of that type.
Today, I inserted a USB key on which I had placed several photos for processing at Costco, some of which were .ORF files.
I had Lr4 open in the background, when suddenly it came onto the screen with cells filled with all those photos on the stick.
It identified both .JPG and .ORF files, and here's the kicker;...after awhile, it "grayed out" all the photos, saying there was already a duplicate of ALL those files in the Lr4 catalog. This was in the COPY panel I saw this.
So, it seems Lr4 does recognize my .ORF files after all, however, strange the SEARCH function reported nothing existed.
Sorry for all these notes, but hopefully I'll be cured and OK very soon, with your help :-)
Regards,
Fred

Searching library by missing photos

I would like to be able to search my entire library for missing photos and be able to narrow the search by date, type, etc, which I can already do. The only way I can think of to find missing photos besides looking at each one to see if there is a question mark is to rename them or export them. Then lightroom will bring up a list of missing photos that cannot be renamed, exportorted, etc. What would also be nice is if the text in that list of missing photos could be selectable so i could copy the file names and paste them to my notepad so i can proceed to search for them.
Im a professional photographer and these features would be really helpful.
Thank you.

I may be misunderstanding what you are wanting to do, but the find missing photos command from the library menu will find all missing photos in the entire catalog.

Un-able to "find" missing files

Hi,
I’m in the midst of a massive image recovery following a server crash (where the image files lived). I’m having success, but I’m running into 2 situations that I can’t figure out.
I have tiles with file names (I say tiles because there is no preview, or image outline), with “?” but I am unable to click on the “?” to locate. Any idea what that means?
Also, I’m finding blocks of images that I successfully re-linked (based on file name) that now have next to them a tile with the exact same file name but with a “?” and can’t be clicked on. Further, these duplicate tiles, same file name as re-linked image next to them have different, often more comprehensive, keywords or different meta data.
Can anyone provide some insight on what exactly I’m experiencing and hopefully some solutions or approaches to trouble shooting it?
Thanks very much in advance!
-EO
screenshot of #1 screenshot of #2

Was your LR catalog on the server that crashed or was it on the local computer hard-drive? I mean could the catalog be corrupted, too?
You might try and right-click on one of the tiles and see if a Find Missing Photo menu option appears.

Find Missing files command does not allow me to navigate to backup drive

I have just bought a MacBook Pro and am moving my catalog an images from a PC. I have read/watched many videos on how to do this. I have copied all images out to a hard drive along with the Catalog file. I downloaded Lightbook 4 to Macbook and have opened my catalog file. All my tags and folder structure are shown with ?marks. When I highlight the My Picture folder and click "find missing photos", I don't get a Navigate window to choose hard drive folder of the same name. Instead, I see it start task, scan and complete task and all the photos now show in the Missing Photos section of the Catalog. I never get a Navigate window. It just keeps starting task and then saying complete. So the images are blank with ? marks on all files.
Help! I bought the Macbook Pro to do my photography and instead I've spend a day watching videos showing the Navigate window which I never get when I do "find missing photos". What's going wrong?

The answer here might help -
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-networking/windows-7-64bit-network-drive-displays-offline-and/4a50148b-3917-4ff5-bac2-493f63f3b95f

Missing Photo Error

I have been attempting to correct a missing photo error to export to .pdf and send to blurb. For whatever reason, I use the Find Missing Photo option in Library and return to the book module to export but this keeps happening. Any suggestions?

I don't think the thumbnail was the solution, but it got me thinking. First I made sure that I did have a full res photo in iphoto and tried re-inserting it. No go. Then, I deleted the pages that had had the photo. No go. Somewhere there was a reference to the missing photo I wasn't getting. So, I created a new site and dragged each webpage to the new site. Once all the existing pages were in the new site, I deleted the old site name. That did it. No more missing photo message and no errors when uploading to the internet. I then renamed the site to the name I used to have.
Thanks for the help.

Recovering missing photos-PLEASE HELP

Im desperately trying to find missing photos. Finder locates parts of the missing files when given the album names: (data, albums which contain only aliases), nothing that can be opened up as an image: says cant find the original.
I've posted another question relating to this which contains more details of my delima.
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=3277048#3277048
I'm learnning a huge lesson the hard way, and I know you can all relate with the emotional loss of photos containing precious images of the history of yours and your families' life. I'm just sick over it.
Please someone help me!
iMac G4 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

My original "claim" of "lost" photos was because one morning I awoke, to continue working on an iPhoto project, to be informed, that iPhoto couldn't find my library. I located my library folder, created a duplicate and named it library.old. I attempted under the guidance of Apple phone support, to drag the entire library folder back into iPhoto. Didn't work, so begain draging folders one by one back into iPhoto. This, was determined to be the only recourse. It was time consuming, but seemed to be going quite well. The new library seemed just fine, when I would do spot checks, on its viability and functionallity.
A week later I awoke to continue the reconstruction project and was once again notified that iPhoto could not find my library...it was empty.
This is when I really begain loosing any semblance of standardization. I just simply lost faith... got scared (freaken paranoid is more like it), and started getting a little lost.
Thank you for the wake up message. I know now that the photos really aren't "lost". Still don't know why my library got lost twice though. I've created a lot of mess that I've got to clean up...and I will! At this point I figure I just need to update my 2.0.1 version with the new iLife, get an external drive for backup and to free up my main drives memory...and then clean house. I'm considering eventually reinstalling the system and getting rid of the partitiones on my hard drive. To extreme?
Regardless I'm learning a lot ...mostly what not to do it seems!
iMac G4 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

How do I find my hidden/missing photos?

On my iPhone4 my Camera Roll is showing 925 photos, which I have recently backed up to my computer. However iTunes shows I have 2103 photos using 4.47 gb. On my phone under settings>general>usage>photos & camera it shows that I have used 4.6 gb. And on my phone under settings>general>about>photos it shows 2,065.
This is my 2nd iPhone, which replaced the 1st iPhone4 when it had a problem and stopped working. I am missing a whole lot of pictures, and so the over 2000 number makes sense. I just don't know how to find the hidden/missing photos.
Can anyone help me with this?

I think your numbers add up --- as follows:
iTunes says you have 2.103 photos. I claim they consist of:
925 photos on your Camera Roll
178 photos in your Photo Library
1,000 photos in your Photo Stream
2,103 total photos
If you're having trouble finding the Photo Stream photos, maybe this will help:
iCloud: Photo Stream FAQ

Finding missing photos

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for