Missing Files in Lightroom

I imported about 150 photos today from a shoot into Lightroom, and began to edit them. A few hours later, I got a message on my computer that my hard drive was full, so I made space by deleting some old files. When I opened up Lightroom, I found that all of the photos from my most recent import were "offline or missing". I attempted to locate the photos, but when I searched for the file names in finder, nothing came up. Unfortunately, I had formatted my memory card since, so I cannot retrieve them from there. Any suggestion

You need to search using your operating system's search feature. If that doesn't find the photos, they're probably gone. You then need to find an "undelete utility program", install it and then run it to see if it can recover your photos. Run it on your hard disk(s) and on the camera card.
In the future, you should not be deleting photos from the camera card until you have 2 copies of each photo, an "original" and a backup on a different physical disk. Also, once you import photos into Lightroom, you need to do all photo management from within Lightroom and not in the operating system.

Similar Messages

Help with missing files within lightroom

I need help locating the missing files within lightroom. When I click on the question mark to locate the files, it opens up a window and I click locate, and then the files are no longer there. This happens even on files that I have not moved out of lightroom. How can I make all of my files appear as they used to? Thanks so much!

You have to find the photos on your hard disk, somewhere. At this point, Lightroom can't help you because it doesn't know where the photos are. If they haven't been renamed, you can have your operating system search all of your hard disk(s) for a specific photo name. Then, you can reconnect entire folders (or folder hierarchies) via
http://www.computer-darkroom.com/lr2_find_folder/find-folder.htm

How to fix 'missing files' in Lightroom 4? [was: adobe lightroom 4]

Hi,
I have the scenario whereby all the images, I assumed, on my hard drive were as I imported to my catalogue. but it now appears that all of my images, are showing as previews but some are showing as 'missing files'. Attempts to reconnect are proving futile as the usual click on and find previous file location location point me to the 'c' drive with a request for the file name. On doing this, the 'C' drive doesn't appear to the have file name I require. Have I in-advertately scrubbed something? I have a lot of images of my grandkids, some of which I can delete but there is one particular image of my premature born grandaughter in the hospital I really need to keep.
I can't do any saving, moving of files whilst these question marks are in place, can someone help as this software, is not as user friendly as I first assumed. All I want is a simple walk thru explanation of saving images from a camera and sorting of existing HD files,(many from past shoots on different cameras), to enable me to sort into some kind of format.
Would it be a good idea to completely scrub all of my images from the 'C' hard drive, (I have a backup on my external deskstop drive), and start afresh?
I have a external drive connected to my laptop and all those images are showing ok with no missing file links. It's only the laptop internal drive that is showing the problem.
any help would be a bonus as the online youtbe video instructions don't answer my problem.

Thanks Jim for your response,
I will upgrade to 5.3
Kind regardsEut van Berkum
Op woensdag 28 januari 17:04 2015 schreef JimHess <[email protected]> het volgende:
how to open NRW-files in Lightroom 4?I
created by JimHess in Photoshop Lightroom - View the full discussionThe only way to use those files with Lightroom 4 is to convert them to DNG using DNG converter 8.3 or higher. The camera wasn't supported in Lightroom until version 5.3. If the reply above answers your question, please take a moment to mark this answer as correct by visiting: https://forums.adobe.com/message/7140310#7140310 and clicking ‘Correct’ below the answer Replies to this message go to everyone subscribed to this thread, not directly to the person who posted the message. To post a reply, either reply to this email or visit the message page: Please note that the Adobe Forums do not accept email attachments. If you want to embed an image in your message please visit the thread in the forum and click the camera icon: https://forums.adobe.com/message/7140310#7140310 To unsubscribe from this thread, please visit the message page at , click "Following" at the top right, & "Stop Following" Start a new discussion in Photoshop Lightroom by email or at Adobe Community For more information about maintaining your forum email notifications please go to https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1516624.

Locating and reinstalling missing files in Lightroom 1.4 ....

I would like to know how to re-install missing files once you locate a missing folder or set of files, I don't understand what to do next (once you have found the files) in order to put the file back into it's original location so the files will work in Lightroom (i.e. change the "red" wording back into "white wording" in the folder column). Initially I click onto the red word and a"locate missing folder" window pops up indicating the files original location at the bottom of the window. I have tried putting that file back into it's original location but nothing changes in Lightroom.
Also I notice that the file will still be listed in the library so when I have tried to just drag that fie back into Lightroom, I am unable to because a window pops up saying the file is already in the catalog. At which point it ask me if I would like to see that file in the Library. Once I see the file in the library I have to delete it in order to re-install the original file.
EEEEKKKKKS there must be a simpler way than this just to re-locate files and make the work again ????? I have tried finding information in Adobe's support manual for Lightroom but can't seem to find the answer. I have also tried using other sources like Scott Kelby's book on Lightroom.
This seems like such an obvious problem that would occur with all users so I know I must missing or overlooking something here. I love Lightroom but this is one of the little frustrations I have with the program. I wish a better manual came with the program when I bought it......
I would appreciate any help anyone has on this topic..... Wesley Wong

function(){return A.apply(null,[this].concat($A(arguments)))}
lovetotakepics wrote:
Hi Marc:
Thank you so very much!! Your recommendation worked. I was able to do a complete search of my computer and found that LR actually stored the originals on my external HD. I was able to link the missing photos from there and I am back in business again! Thanks again for the advice......you are a lifesaver!! Still learning the ins and outs of LR, but I'm getting there.
Glad to hear it all worked out !

Missing files in Lightroom 3.4.1 Help!!

I was working in Lightroom 3.4.1 (Vista Operating System) with my soccer pictures and had to momentarily leave my computer. My 13 year old daughter came in with a friend, and while my Lightroom was still open in the Library, she put my Lightroom down into the system tray, proceeded to try to load a DVD game, found she could not, logged off of my user (while Lightroom was still open mind you), logged onto hers, tried the DVD again, found it still would not load, logged off her user and returned to mine, and then soon after left my computer after the computer shut itself down. I returned to the computer, opened my Lightroom, and had almost every photo show the little film strip and question mark in the top right hand corner indicating that the original file was missing or unavailable. I was just working on them prior to that and they were fine. Unfortunately, I do not make copies of my original files from my CF cards until I have them edited, then I send them to an external hard drive. From now on, my procedure changes. But, for now, does anyone know what happened and how I can get these pictures to be editable again? No, I do not have the original files. When I import my pictures from the CF cards, I then re-use the CF cards so I do not have to buy 100's of them. I never thought my daughter would be my downfall for these. Ugh!!!! Can't edit any of them in the develop module at all......all that work....gone!! I can see my edits and all the pictures, but can't do a thing with them! Well, tough lesson learned. Any assistance any one can give me would be greatly appreciated!! Thank you so very much!!!!

function(){return A.apply(null,[this].concat($A(arguments)))}
lovetotakepics wrote:
Hi Marc:
Thank you so very much!! Your recommendation worked. I was able to do a complete search of my computer and found that LR actually stored the originals on my external HD. I was able to link the missing photos from there and I am back in business again! Thanks again for the advice......you are a lifesaver!! Still learning the ins and outs of LR, but I'm getting there.
Glad to hear it all worked out !

Lightroom 5 Missing file/Catalog error

After prompted to find a "missing" file in Lightroom 5 (which is still in its original/previous location) once selected it says "The file "example" is associated with another photon the catalog. Each file can only be associated with one photo." Understood, but that photo doesn't exist anywhere else, and when I click show in library it just shows me the photo that i just attempted to relink. Please help!

Hi,
Please download CC desktop from the mentioned link: https://creative.adobe.com/products/creative-cloud and try to install Lightroom from there. Before installing CC desktop please remove Lightroom from Control Panel and run the cleaner tool: http://www.adobe.com/support/contact/cscleanertool.html and then try installing.
Regards,
Romit Sinha

Missing files Lightroom 3 and OSX 10.9.5 - how do I fix this? PLEASE

Hi Mr. Jim. I am having very similar problems with my Lightroom 3. I recently updated my Mac OSX to 10.9.5 and since doing so my photos are missing or offline and I cannot import from any source, even my Canon. I found updates on Adobe that take it up to 5.6 but when I downloaded it, it seems to have downloaded the Lightroom 5 version. It requires a serial number to use so.... that does me no good. So then I downloaded the update 3.6 and opened it but it did not seem to apply itself to my Lightroom program because it still says Lightroom 3.2... I hope that all made sense. So I guess firstly, is there a way to upgrade it to another version without buying a serial number? If that cannot be done, could you or anyone else help walk me through my Lightroom issues?
I tried your solution up to Ctrl+click Import but there is not a selection for "Update Folder Location". I made the 3 new folders and I am stuck at this part of your process.
I currently have 5791 missing photos and I need help . I did read that the bridge between the files on the HD and the files in Lightroom get messed up if they are moved and you have to track them down but I cannot seem to do that because when I found some of the "lost" files the contents were all grey and un-clickable.
Message was edited by: Geoff Walker
I branched this off from another thread so it is more visible

Please read this: Adobe Lightroom - Find moved or missing files and folders
You do not want to be in the Import section of Lightroom, you want to be in the Library Module. You don't want "Update Folder Location", you want to ctrl-click on a Folder name (not in Import, but in the Library Module Folder Panel) and select "Find Missing Folder"
You do not want to re-import photos that have already been imported, this is almost always a bad thing to do.

Lightroom catalogue is missing files!

today when i went into my lr catalogue to view pictures some were missing. This has happened before. so under lightroom on f drive i went into recent lrcat5 backup and clicked twice. This usually restores the missing pictures or entire folder,but not this time. Out of 4700 images their are 501 with the ! mark in small rect. box on upper right of picture. I hit on one of the images and clicked locate the miss file,but could not find them as it said orig. file could not be located. The missing images are not on the f drive. What steps can i take to restore these missing images. No i have not done a backup recently of my images on an ext. hard drive. I don"t know the cause of it as i did my routine post processing in lr5 a few days ago on some of these images and did some work in pe10 and then they were returned to lightroom. Heeelp!! Perplexed! Thanks. Irwin lakin

If and what steps to take depends on what happened to the images. LR doesn’t move or delete images without your telling it to.
If the images are on an external drive, perhaps the drive letter changes based on what else is also plugged into your computer.
Were the missing images moved somewhere else? You can use your OS file-searching capabilities to look for them.
Were the missing images deleted? Are they in the trash or recycle-bin?
Do you work with more than one LR catalog? Where you might have done a Move Import in one catalog of the same images that were already in another catalog and so that second import will move the images so that the LR catalog you did the first import to won’t be able to find them.

Lightroom catalog backup find missing file location- please help!

Hi,
Before I start, if anyone can answer this question I would be so grateful. I would cry!
Ok, so let me start.
Recently I cleared my whole entire mac and backed up everything on a hard drive. when I reinstalled lightroom on my clean mac, I also imported the catalog that I backed up. It all worked fine, and this post isn't about a lost catalog, or accidentally deleted photos.
So, what is hapenning is. When I imported my catalog I got an error message, for all the photos and folders. this:
So I found re-finding the folder, or finding the "missing file location" (which is so annoying because I wished Lightroom just backed up the pictures along with the catalog). But when I found the folder, only some photos showed up and some still displayed the exclamation mark.
Now I do have all the photos with the exclamation marks in folders on my backup hard drive, BUT they are all unedited raw versions. I honestly cannot go back and edit 2000 photos, especially after me having to clean all of the photos when my camera had over 30 spots of sensor dust on the photos. So those backup photos are what lightroom backed up, but I want to know how I can recover the photos in the lightroom catalog with the edits APPLIED.
May I PLEASEE get help on this. I am SO STUCK and do not want to mess up ANYTHING at all!
I would appreciate so much for ANY help! PLEASE!
Kind regards,
Josh

Please post on the Lightroom Forum.

Why can't Lightroom TRY to find "missing" files?

It's so frustrating--can someone please tell me why Lightroom can't even TRY to find "missing" files? Years and years ago, iView (now Expression Media) did it so it shouldn't be that difficult to offer "missing file suggestions"!

CSS Simon wrote:
Vienna_Sydney wrote:
If you move and rename your files from within LR, your outside programs can't find them, unless you export them. This creates quite a mess in the end
What outside programs do you have in mind?
By outside programs I meant Adobe Bridge and CS5. The only filenames that remain unchanged are the raw files. I eventually rename files as part of the workflow. I work with 3 different cameras, all creating different filenames. As LR is limited in what it can do, but not without its merit, I have to use other programs.
Anyway, I don't have a problem - as I had mentioned in my first reply. Synchronising folders does the job for me very well

Wanting to move Lightroom catalogues off my laptop onto an external hard drive but don't want to move them apart from the originals in my library - otherwise I get a ? and missing file

Having trouble moving my LR catalogues off of my laptop because They're attached to the original files stored in my laptop library. If I move the LR catalogues off my laptop, will I risk getting the dreaded "?" and missing files when I reopen the LR cat? Thanks

Having trouble moving my LR catalogues off of my laptop because They're attached to the original files stored in my laptop library. If I move the LR catalogues off my laptop, will I risk getting the dreaded "?" and missing files when I reopen the LR cat? Thanks

Lightroom suggestion (locate missing files)

In the dialog for locate missing file, if the file name is different, would be nice on occasion to be able to select 'use original name' I am sure meta data can be compared to see if they are, if fact, the same image with just a different name
And how did I come about this thinking? Well, the HD of all my RAW images got totaly corrupted - to the point I have a recovery place recover the data from the HD. Did retrieve all 1900 RAW files - only no file structure, and the naming went like FIL1.NEF through FIL1900.NEF
Needless to say, this is a major undertaking renaming back to the orginal. The saved meta data is a big help to use the Create Date and time to ensure it is the right image from the catalog, but sure would be nice if all I had to do was point to that image and tell LR to use the orginal file name, not the new file name....

If and what steps to take depends on what happened to the images. LR doesn’t move or delete images without your telling it to.
If the images are on an external drive, perhaps the drive letter changes based on what else is also plugged into your computer.
Were the missing images moved somewhere else? You can use your OS file-searching capabilities to look for them.
Were the missing images deleted? Are they in the trash or recycle-bin?
Do you work with more than one LR catalog? Where you might have done a Move Import in one catalog of the same images that were already in another catalog and so that second import will move the images so that the LR catalog you did the first import to won’t be able to find them.

Lightroom - how to restore backed up files (not Lightroom catalogue) from one external drive to another?

How to restore backed up files (not lightroom catalogue) from one external drive to another.
I recently backuped my photo files from one external drive to another. The backup (carbon copy cloner) pointed to some corrupt files on the original drive.
I have deleted those files and am finding good copies of them in Time Machine backups.
I want to get rid of the original external drive; use the recent backup as my main external and then back it up onto a brand new drive.
What I am not sure about is how to point lightroom to the backups so it knows to look on the new drive instead of the old drive and all those exclamation marks and question marks go away.
There are close to 60,000 images in numerous folders all with one 'parent folder.'
My best guess is from Lightroom Help - Create and Manage Folders - Locate Missing Folders
Can I point to the one parent folder and all the subfolders will come back?
Is this the process to recover files into lightroom and will there be a problem with so many photos?

http://www.computer-darkroom.com/lr2_find_folder/find-folder.htm

Files disappeared from library, "missing" files not really missing

I had a folder with 3 files in different formats for each image. These were imported several days ago, grouped into stacks, captioned, tagged, etc. and synced to the files. They continued to exist in the library some time afterward, but today when I opened lightroom all of the jpg versions of all of the images and all 3 formats of one image in particular had vanished from the library. It did not claim that it could not find them on disk (and in fact the files *do* still exist on disk right where they should), they just didn't show up. I was able to re-import all of the jpg images without trouble, but for the other two formats of the one missing image, importing one of them fails because it "already exists in the library," and the other one is willing to import but then doesn't show up in the folder or the recently imported files list. When I try to synchronize the folder, it suggests that I import that file, but it never actually does. Since importing the jpgs, it also suggests that I remove 53 "missing" files, the number of jpgs imported. When I view the missing files in the library, it shows only 2 of the jpgs, one of which belongs with the files that will not import and neither of which is actually missing--they can both be synchronized just fine by clicking the little synchronize icon on the actual photo.
Does anyone know what's going on here and how I might be able to get the files that won't import back into the library? And how to be sure that files won't just go away on their own again?
Edit: to be clear, missing versions of files were definitely not stacked with the other ones and the "don't import duplicates" box was not checked when re-importing the ones that won't re-import

I managed to get the photos that wouldn't import back in by deleting them directly out of the database and then reimporting them into lightroom. I'm a little concerned that they disappeared in the library view in the first place, though. Does this sort of thing happen often, and under what circumstances? I'm still in the free trial period and was very close to buying the program, but now I'm not so sure. If I'm using an application to manage my photos, I want to know that it's actually managing all of the photos I put into it and not randomly forgetting about them.
I'm still having the not-really-missing files problem, though. I think it may actually be because they got associated as "sidecar" files somehow and are now in there twice, once as the sidecar file and another time as a separate jpg image. I'm not really sure why only one of them shows up in the missing images view, I think it might be because I edited that one so it's in a slightly different state from the others? If there are any tips on how to resolve that state, I'm all ears, I'd like it to stop telling me I have 53 missing files when I don't.

Catalogs, Missing Files, and Question Marks for Beginners

Hello, fellow non-power-users. I just wanted to post something here that I've learned with my travails and travels using LightRoom 3. In the past, Adobe has paid me to write for them, and I'm a professional writer. So why am I doing this for free? Because I wish to heck I'd understood this stuff before I dove into LR. Somehow, even with reading a book on the program, I didn't really get it.
1) Most of the people who are kind enough to post and help on Adobe support and other forums on the Interwebs are power users of Lightroom. The great thing is, they often know what they're talking about. The bad thing is, many of them don't understand what it's like to be a non-power-user who really has no intention of becoming a power user. Be very, very careful before you try to take their advice about any large issue that might have serious consequences for your photos.
2) LR has about forty million ways to do things, so it can be overwhelming, and you may also receive lots of contradictory information about how to accomplish stuff. If you're like me---not a professional photographer, more a refugee from the annoying land of iPhoto who just needs a *little* more power and customization---you may have trouble streamlining, figuring out the few things you actually need the program to do for you. Try some introductory videos and tutorials, even books, but don't expect them to solve your real problems with the program.
3) Before you begin, grasp a few concepts:
     a. When you're working in LR, you're working with a "catalog." It shows you images of your photos, but these aren't really your photos. Your actual photos are *files* that live on your computer somewhere. Think of it as a slideshow projected on a wall: you can see the photos on the wall, but they aren't the "real photo." If you walked up to the wall and painted on the projection of a slide, the "real photo" file would not be changed. What LR does is keep track of those wall paintings for you, so if you wanted to print up a version of that slide and include your brush strokes, LR could do that for you. The catalog is a type of database.
     b. So where are those real photos, those files? Probably all over your computer in different places. You may want to consolidate them all in one place before you start using Lightroom. Here's why: once Lightroom thinks your "real photo" is in a certain place, it doesn't want you to move the "real photo" file. Say you have a photo called that someone sent in email. You put it on your desktop. Now you are tempted to drag-n-drop it onto Lightroom. DO NOT DO IT. Because someday, you might want that photo to not clutter up your desktop. You'll drag it to another folder on your hard drive, and BOOM, now Lightroom cannot find the photo.
You can't work on the photo from within Lightroom. You can't print it. Lightroom will show a question mark ? on its wall-projector slide of your photo file. Often when someone moves files on their computer, it's not a single file on a desktop. It's a bunch of things they are trying to organize. Adobe knows this, which is why they have a "find missing photos" command. They know you are likely to screw this up. The command will show you those missing files. You have to select them individually by hand and search your computer for them to relink. You can spend a lot of time relinking photos. It sucks. Really sucks.
     c. If you do need to move stuff, Lightroom does let you do it, but only from within the program. So, open up LR, and look in the left-hand column for an item called "Folders." (You will be in Library mode to make this happen.) You can move your "real photo" files around from within this area. It is a clunky process and an enormous pain in the butt.
     d. Rant time: For some reason, one of the most sophisticated and long-lived software companies in history, the developers that completely changed the worlds of art, design, photography, and publishing--you got it, Adobe--have not been able to solve this problem and chase down your real photo files if you moved them from within the Finder, the way you normally move files on a computer. Go figure. (Irrelevant note: I've been using their products since Pagemaker 1.0 and it's sort of astonishing that they've never solved this problem, in LR or InDesign or elsewhere. It's like publishing a magazine using Quark in 1995, rushing to find the messed-up links before you hand-carry your ZIP drive over to the printer. Hee hee.)
4) Decide whether you want to divide your photos into a few separate catalogs, or whether you want one enormous catalog ("master catalog"). Then try not to change your mind.
Here is my story:
Summary: I started with multiple catalogs and regret merging them into one.
I hired a photographer/supposedly-LR guy to set up my LR and he suggested multiple catalogs, each easily saveable (catalog AND its photos) to a single external hard drive. I only made two: one for family photos, one for a big art project. Whenever I asked questions online about using LR, everyone told me to combine all photos into one big master catalog. Eventually I did, and I regret it. As a non-power-user, I screwed up something in the merging process, and ended up with a lot of question-mark, missing-photo problems, and a bunch of duplicate photos to boot. What a waste of time.
If you're not a pro, you probably don't need a gigantic single database to deal with. If you're someone who uses Dropbox or another non-Adobe cloud method to store and work with your photos, and you don't have unlimited storage, you may find it way more convenient to have a few different catalogs.
Power users probably don't screw up the process of merging all their catalogs into one. Power users have, from what I've read online, many complicated ways of making a big master catalog work the way they want, say for working on small numbers of files while traveling with a laptop, and then getting that work into the giant master catalog when they get back home to their studios.
But I am not a power user, and if you're reading this, you probably aren't a power user either. So perhaps my experience will be useful to you.
5) Paying for plug-ins to help with all this nonsense.
You can buy plug-ins that help you do things this application should already do by itself. For example, "Duplicate Finder" goes through and finds all the photos that you've accidentally imported more than once into your catalog. Then you can painstakingly go through, figure out which copy to keep, and delete them. Often, these "duplicate" photos are not duplicates of your "real photo" file. But at some point you moved your "real photo" file while you were tidying up your computer files, and later accidentally re-imported that photo into your LR catalog. Since LR doesn't follow your files around when you move them from within your computer/Finder, LR thinks it's a whole brand-new file. It's like your projector is projecting three images on the wall at the same time. You have to figure out which one to keep, which one will save your wall-painting changes, etc. And it is a huge pain in the butt.
Note that you can click a box when importing photos, a box that says "Do not import suspected duplicates." This can be really helpful for avoiding duplicates in the first place. It is not, however, infallible.
OK, I hope this helps someone somewhere. I'm going to go back to the horribly time-consuming task of relinking files and trying to make my brain work the way LR's brain works.

Glad to help!
Another good thing to do from time to time is to boot from your install CD, then choose "Disk Utility", then do a check (and repair, if necessary) of your boot disk.
You can't verify or fix a disk you've started from, thus the need to boot from a CD. You can boot from a second hard disk to do this test if it has MacOS on it.

Missing Files in Lightroom

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