Dividing a Folder

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Today’s Question: I have a folder in Lightroom Classic that contains photos from different locations. How do I go about breaking these photos into meaningful locations?

Tim’s Quick Answer: You could split up these photos by making new subfolders and then dragging and dropping the photos to the applicable subfolder. Just make sure that all of this work is done within Lightroom Classic, not through the operating system or other software.

More Detail: In Lightroom Classic you can create new subfolders within an existing folder, or create a new folder in any available storage location. In this case it may be most helpful to create subfolders to contain the various photos currently contained within a single folder.

Start by navigating to the folder you want to re-organize within the Folders list on the left panel in the Library module. Then click the plus symbol (+) to the right of the Folders heading and choose “Add Subfolder” from the popup menu. In the dialog that appears, enter a name for the new subfolder. Note that if you had already selected photos you want to place within this new subfolder you can turn on the “Included selected photos” checkbox. Click Create and the new subfolder will be created. Repeat this process for as many subfolders as you need, being sure to go back to the parent folder each time before creating a new subfolder.

You can now drag-and-drop photos from the parent folder into the applicable subfolder. If there is a range of photos you want to move, you can click on the first image and then hold the Shift key on the keyboard and click on the last image in the series. If you want to toggle the selection of photos that are not in a single sequence you can hold the Ctrl key on Windows or the Command key on Macintosh while clicking on the photo you want to select or deselect. Then drag-and-drop any of the selected photos to the new subfolder. In the confirmation dialog that appears click the Move button, and the photos will be moved.

Repeat this process as needed to move photos into subfolders. Note, by the way, that you could also create the new folders in a different location, such as to have the new folders on the same level as the original folder. But again, be sure that you perform this work in Lightroom Classic, so that the catalog will reflect the changes you’ve made. It is worth noting that the changes to folder structure you make within Lightroom Classic will indeed be reflected on your hard drive, not just in your catalog.