Today’s Question: My Lightroom Classic catalog shows fewer photos than the folder on the hard drive where the photos are kept. What makes this issue even more confusing is that when I try to import photos from the folder, Lightroom Classic indicates that the photos have already been imported. So, where are they?
Tim’s Quick Answer: This scenario suggests that the photos had previously been imported to a different folder, even though there are copies on the hard drive in the folder where some of the images are shown in Lightroom Classic.
More Detail: If the folder on the hard drive contains more photos than are present in that folder in the Lightroom Classic catalog, that generally means that either only some of the photos had been imported in the first place, or that some of the photos had been removed from the catalog without deleting the source files.
In this case there is the added twist that when an attempt is made to import the photos from the folder that aren’t in the Lightroom Classic catalog, the photos are being reported as already being present in the catalog. While it is possible to override this issue by turning off the “Don’t import suspected duplicates” checkbox on the right panel in the Import dialog, I recommend first figuring out where the photos actually are.
One quick way to find the applicable photos is to sort by capture time and browse all images. So, while browsing the affected folder in Lightroom Classic in the grid view, set the Sort popup on the toolbar below the image preview area to “Capture Time”. Then be sure to select one of the photos in the folder where there are “extra” photos on the hard drive not shown in Lightroom Classic.
Next, navigate to the “All Photographs” collection in the Catalog section at the top of the left panel. Also make sure the Library Filter bar at the top of the grid view is set to “None” so that all photos are displayed. At this point, assuming the photos expected in the folder were captured around the same time, you should be seeing all the photos, including those that are in the folder on the hard drive but not in Lightroom Classic. Assuming that’s the case, right-click on one of the “missing” photos and choose “Go to folder in Library” from the popup menu. That will take you to the location where the photos are actually stored within the Lightroom Classic catalog, which will partially reveal the mystery.
You’ll still need to resolve this issue, which I recommend doing by consolidating photo storage within Lightroom Classic. You may even want to consolidate to a completely new folder within the catalog, and then go look at the two source folders in Lightroom Classic and on the hard drive to deal with the leftover images. But at least at this point you’ll know where the images are that prevent you from importing duplicate copies from a different folder.
