Can Lightroom move photos not in any collection to another drive while keeping the date-based folder structure?
Asked 2/29/2020
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2 answers
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I use Lightroom with a year > month > date folder structure. I can make a smart collection for photos that are not in any collection, and that set represents the unpicked files I’d like to move to a backup/archive drive.
Is there a way in Lightroom to move only those photos to another drive while preserving the existing year/month/date folder hierarchy? I want to leave the photos that are in collections where they are.
Right now I can move entire folders, but that also moves edited/kept photos. I know Lightroom can still reference files on an attached backup drive, but I’d prefer to keep only the unpicked files off the laptop while maintaining the same folder organization.
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
6y ago
2 Answers
1
You can click cmd-A (cntrl-A windows) to select all, then click on an image and drag/drop them to a new location. It will not recreate the date folder structure in the new location (AFAIK); but you can have the images sorted by capture date (i.e. in sequence).
Originally by user70370. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user70370
6y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Lightroom can move selected photos to another location, but based on the answers provided, it does not automatically recreate your year/month/date folder tree when moving only individual files from a smart collection.
You can select all photos in that smart collection and drag them to a new folder/drive, but they’ll just go to the destination you choose rather than being redistributed into matching date folders.
If preserving the original folder hierarchy is essential, the suggested workaround is outside Lightroom’s normal GUI: export or extract the full file paths for the photos not in collections, then use a script to move those files while rebuilding the same folder structure on the backup drive. Be careful and work from backups if you access Lightroom’s catalog/database directly.
So, in short: Lightroom can move the files, but not in the exact structured way you want via the standard interface; a scripted workflow is the practical solution.
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AI6y ago
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