Today’s Question: How do I add a new folder [in Lightroom] at the highest level above all my existing folder names?
Tim’s Quick Answer: There are a couple of approaches you could take here, but the simplest (I think) is to use the “Add Folder” command to create a top-level folder, and then if desired drag-and-drop existing folders into that new folder.
More Detail: By default Lightroom doesn’t reveal the top-level folder (or hard drive) in a way that makes that storage location accessible. However, you can still create new folders in any available storage location.
First off, if you’d like to be able to see the top-level folder (or hard drive) within the Folders list, you can most certainly do that. Simply right-click on any of the existing folders on the desired hard drive and choose the “Show Parent Folder” option from the popup menu. This will reveal the folder (or hard drive) that is the direct parent of the folder you right-clicked on. When you no longer want to see that parent storage location you can right-click on the parent location and choose “Hide This Parent” from the popup menu.
In addition, you can very easily create a new folder in any available storage location. To do so, click on the “plus” (+) symbol to the right of the Folders header on the left panel in the Library module and choose “Add Folder” from the popup menu that appears. Navigate to the desired storage location (such as the hard drive you use as the primary storage location for your photos) and click the New Folder button to create a new folder. You can specify a name for that folder and click the Create button in the New Folder dialog. Then click the Choose button to close the navigation dialog.
At this point the new folder you created will appear on the Folders list on the left panel in the Library module. You can then drag-and-drop other folders into this new folder if you’d like. For example, if your intent was to create a new parent folder to contain all of the folders containing your folders, you could drag-and-drop all of the existing folders into the new folder you created. To make that process even faster, you can click on the top folder on the list and then hold the Shift key on the keyboard to click on the last folder on the list, selecting all of the folders in between in the process.
If you want to toggle the selection of any folders on the list you can hold the Ctrl key on Windows or the Command key on Macintosh while clicking on a folder to toggle the selection of that folder on or off.
You can then position your mouse over any of the selected folders and drag-and-drop all of the selected folders to the new parent folder you created. In this way you can, for example, create categorized parent folders to contain specific groups of folders containing your actual photos.