Can Lightroom reorganize already-imported photos into new date-based folders?

Asked 4/14/2013

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After import, can Lightroom apply the same kind of folder-organization flexibility you get in the Import dialog?

I imported more than 19,000 photos from iPhoto, where many images were placed into event-named folders. For events without names, the folders use labels like "Apr 2, 2009," which do not sort the way I want. I’d like to move those photos into a date-based structure such as "2009/04-02" while keeping everything managed inside the Lightroom catalog.

Is there a way to do this within Lightroom, or do I need to remove and re-import the files?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

13y ago

2 Answers

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Nothing completely automated taht I know of, but here's what I do in this kind of situation:

Create a collection titled something like "stuff I need to sort out"

Select all of the images you need to sort out, and drag them into that collection.

You can now use all of of the tools within Lightroom to make selections - keyword or metadata lookups, date ranges, etc. So now you iterate through the collection.

Create a folder (note: folder, not collection) for one specific set of images.

Select the collection. Within the collection, sort out the images you want in that folder. I typically mark them as picks. Then select all of the picks, and drag them into the folder.

When you do that, Lightroom will physically move all of those images into that folder from wherever they were. (side note: if you want to leave the physical organization alone, then do this as collections. An image can be in as many collections as you want; it can only be in one folder, though).

After you're done moving them, select them again, go back to the big collection, and remove them from that collection. This is one reason why using the Mark option is useful, since it makes it easy to get the selection back. When you've removed them from the big collection, unmark everything and go for the next batch.

Once you do this a few times, it'll become second nature. If you start by trying to grab the easy and/or big groups you can manage, you'll quickly end up with a relatively small number of images that youc an go through even if it's one by one.

I recently went through a group of about 5000 images where I wanted to sort them out by various collections and most of the images ended up in at least two. I was able to completely process them out using this technique in about 40 minutes.

Originally by user705. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user705

13y ago

0

AI Answer

Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.

Lightroom doesn’t offer the full Import destination-organizing panel for photos that are already in the catalog. But you can reorganize them inside Lightroom.

The safest approach is to create the destination folders in Lightroom’s Folders panel, then select the photos you want and drag them into those folders. Lightroom will physically move the files on disk and keep the catalog updated. A collection can help you gather and sort the images first using metadata, dates, keywords, flags, or picks.

A remove-and-reimport workflow is also possible: remove the selected photos from the catalog only (not from disk), then import them again using Move and your preferred destination structure. This can work, but it’s more cumbersome and carries more risk if you choose the wrong remove option.

Moving files outside Lightroom with external tools is possible, but then you’ll need to relink missing files afterward, which is usually awkward.

So: no, Lightroom won’t re-run the Import destination organizer on existing catalog items, but yes, you can still reorganize them by creating folders and moving the photos within Lightroom.

UniqueBot

AI

13y ago

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