Today’s Question: I have run into a problem after upgrading to the latest version of Lightroom Classic. I keep having an exclamation mark on my ultimate parent folder, but there is no exclamation mark on any of the subfolders.
Tim’s Quick Answer: It is possible you’re experiencing a bug that I’ve not seen reported. However, I also recommend double-checking that there isn’t a missing subfolder since that is what the new icon indicates.
More Detail: The new folder badge introduced with Lightroom Classic 15 indicates that there is a subfolder somewhere within that folder that is missing. If the missing folder is empty, it is possible there are no missing photos in your catalog, only missing folders.
The new badge is actually quite helpful, in that it makes it more clear when you have an issue with one or more missing folders and possibly missing photos. When a folder is missing, all folders that are a parent to that folder will have an exclamation point icon within a black circle. So, for example, let’s assume you have a date-based folder structure where there’s a top-level “Photos” folder with subfolders for years and subfolders within those for months. So, for example, you might have a folder named “01” (for January) within a folder “2025”, which in turn is within the “Photos” folder.
In this scenario, if the “01” folder is missing it would display a question mark icon on the folder icon within the Folders list. The “2025” and “Photos” folders would show the exclamation point icon within a black circle.
So, to locate the missing subfolder you would make sure the top-level folder is expanded to reveal subfolders and then scroll down the full list looking for the exclamation point icon. Assuming you found such a folder, you would need to expand it to reveal its subfolders so you could look for the missing subfolder within.
If you’ve scoured the folders list and don’t have an exclamation point icon for any subfolders, I would try quitting Lightroom Classic and restarting it. If at that point the icon still appears, I would assume there is a bug with this feature, in which case hopefully Adobe will address that soon.
If it does seem to be a bug, you can submit the details to Adobe here:
https://www.adobe.com/products/wishform.html
