How can I merge duplicate Lightroom folders that use a mapped drive and a UNC path?
Asked 11/18/2015
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2 answers
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In one Lightroom catalog, I accidentally imported photos from the same network storage using two different paths: a mapped drive and a UNC path. As a result, Lightroom shows two top-level folders for the same physical location.
Example:
- Mapped drive folder:
Multimedia (M:)with 1,297 photos - UNC folder:
\\192.168.1.3\Multimediawith 17,135 photos
I want everything to appear under the UNC folder, ideally without losing edits already made to the photos that were imported via the mapped drive. What’s the best way to consolidate these into one folder structure in Lightroom?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
10y ago
2 Answers
1
There is not much that Lightroom will let you do to the top level folder so here is the procedure I used.
For all child folders of the mapped drive folder (Multimedia (\192.168.1.3) (M:) 1297 Photos):
- Right click and select "Update Folder Location"
- Select the UNC folder \IP\Multimedia... location that is the same as the selected folder location
- Lightroom will prompt so agree to Merge the folders
After that all files were located under the UNC top level folder.
This worked for me. Luckily I had organized by year so I only had a few top level folders but if there were many folders this could have been more of a painful process.
Originally by user46465. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user46465
10y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
A practical Lightroom method is to relink the mapped-drive folders to the matching UNC folders and let Lightroom merge them.
For each child folder under the mapped-drive top-level folder:
- Right-click the folder.
- Choose Update Folder Location.
- Point it to the identical folder at the UNC path.
- When Lightroom prompts to Merge, confirm it.
Repeating this for the mapped-drive child folders should move everything under the UNC top-level folder while preserving the catalog data for those photos.
If you have many folders, this can be tedious, but it avoids losing adjustments already stored in the catalog.
Another possible approach is to first write metadata to files for the mapped-drive set, then re-import via the UNC path and remove the old folder if everything matches. However, the folder-location update and merge method is the more direct way to consolidate duplicate paths in one catalog.
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