Today’s Question: I have always used Lightroom Classic’s “import photos” feature to download the images from my camera. Why is it that the images are often imported out of sequence instead of in the order taken?
Tim’s Quick Answer: Images will generally be imported in what seems like a random order, based on the way data is written to and read from the media cards. You can ensure you’re browsing the images in the correct order by setting the sort order to Capture Time.
More Detail: You can change the sort order for your photos using the Sort popup that is available both in the Import dialog and on the toolbar below the grid view in the Library module in Lightroom Classic. In general I recommend using the Capture Time option so you’re seeing photos in the order they were taken.
When you import photos from a media card into Lightroom Classic, they won’t generally be downloaded in the same order they were captured due to how the data is written (and therefore read) from the media card. This can lead to some potential challenges in your workflow. For example, if you set the sort order to “Off” in the Import dialog and rename with a sequence number during import, sorting by filename versus capture time can result in a completely different sort order.
I recommend setting the sort order to Capture Time both in the import dialog and in the grid view in the Library module, unless you have a specific need to sort the images in a different order. This can be especially important if you’re renaming during import and will include a sequence number as part of the file renaming structure.
