Today’s Question: Can one make a collection set in Lightroom Classic after the fact? I have a large number of collections, and if I had been thinking ahead, I would have organized them into sets. Can I do that now?
Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, you can create a new collection set after you created collections and then move existing collections into a collection set.
More Detail: Collections in Lightroom Classic can be organized into collection sets, similar to how a group of related folders can be placed into a common parent folder. While it is possible to add a collection to a collection set when the collection is created, you can also add collection sets after the fact.
To create a new collection set, click the plus (+) icon to the right of the Collections heading on the left panel in the Library module and choose “Create Collection Set” from the popup menu. In the dialog that appears, enter a meaningful name for the collection set in the Name field and click the Create button. The new collection set will then appear in the Collections section.
When you want to add an existing collection to a collection set, simply drag the collection onto the collection set. This will place the collection inside the collection set, and you can then collapse the collection set to hide the contents and streamline the display in the Collections section.
Note that you can also have multiple layers of nested collection sets. For example, you could create a collection set called “Projects” that contains collection sets for “Calendars”, “Books”, and “Presentations”. You could then put collections into their respective category of collection set, which in turn is inside another collection set. This can be especially helpful for photographers who create a particularly large number of collections for organizing their photos.
