Today’s Question: I find that I have created a sub-folder, I assume during import, and I really did not want to. Can you tell me how to get rid of this sub-folder so I have a single folder?
Tim’s Quick Answer: This task involves two basic steps. First you want to move the photos from the sub-folder into the parent folder. Then you want to remove the (now empty) sub-folder. Both of these tasks should be performed directly within Lightroom.
More Detail: To move the photos into the parent folder, you’ll naturally want to first navigate to the sub-folder that contains some of your photos. In other words, simply click on the name of that folder in the Folders list on the left panel in the Library module in Lightroom.
Next, make sure there are no filters applied to your images, so that you’re actually seeing all of the photos in the current folder. You can confirm this by selecting “None” on the Library Filter Bar, which can be made visible by selecting View > Show Filter Bar from the menu.
You can then select all photos in the current folder by choosing Edit > Select All from the menu. Then point your mouse at the thumbnail for one of the selected photos, and drag and drop to the parent folder in the Folders list on the left panel. You will see a dialog asking you to confirm that you want to move the photos on your hard drive, where you can click the Move button to finalize the task.
Once the process of moving the selected photos is complete and the sub-folder is empty, you can remove that sub-folder. To do so, simply right-click on the sub-folder and choose “Remove” from the popup menu.
This process of consolidating folders is covered in Lesson 7 from Chapter 2 in my course “Cleaning Up Your Mess in Lightroom”, which can be found in the GreyLearning video training library here: