“Help! My Photos Are Completely Unorganized and Lightroom is a Mess. How can I just start all over?”
I got this question from readers twice in one day last week, so I thought a blog post was in order.
It’s the ultimate in Fall/Spring cleaning — essentially you will build a new closet, put copies of everything in it ( nicely organized), and then throw everything away from the old one. This may not be a cost-effective way to reorganize your clothes, but it works for your photos!
This particular method will start you over with a new blank Lightroom catalog, and will organize all your photos into shoot (date) folders within year folders within a master folder. You can choose to organize them differently, but my way allows you to automate the reorganization process.
This process is efficient, but it does have costs: you will lose any collections, flags, and virtual copies you have created in Lightroom. If you have question marks all over files and folders, and your photo organization system is a mess, this may be for you. On the other hand, if you don’t have too many question marks to resolve and your photo organization can be easily cleaned up by dragging and dropping using Lightroom’s folders panel, I wouldn’t recommend this more drastic method.
If working with files and folders makes you uncomfortable, this process also may not be for you. Read through all the instructions to make sure you are comfortable with the whole process before starting. (If you like the idea of this, but doing it makes you nervous, I am available for private sessions, either in-person or over the web.)
If you want to start over with a new catalog but don’t need drastic rearranging of your images, see the note at the end of this post for which steps to follow.
Here goes:
1. Save any Lightroom work you have done to photos (keywords, stars, color labels and other metadata, Develop work) out to the folders where your photos live:
In the Library module, click on All Photographs in the Catalog Panel (top left), make sure you are in Grid view (G), select all your photos (Ctl/Cmd-A), and go to Photo>Save Metadata to File, or do a Ctl/Cmd-S to do the same. By doing this, your work will still be available when you re-import the photos. (You may see little .XMP files in the folders with your photos — just ignore them.)
2. Make sure you understand where your current Lightroom catalog is, as you are going to delete it later:
Go to Edit (Lightroom on a Mac)>Catalog Settings. The general tab shows you where the catalog folder is – make a note of this.
3. Decide where your photos and your Lightroom catalog are going to live — on an external hard drive? In your Pictures folder on your internal hard drive?
I prefer to keep my photos and my Lightroom catalog folder together in one master folder. I will assume for the rest of the article that you will do this, but you can of course put your catalog and photos in separate places, as long as you make a conscious choice. (Note that while image files can be stored on a network drive, Lightroom catalogs cannot.)
Using Mac Finder or Windows Explorer/My Computer, go to the location you have chosen and create a new folder. Call it something like “My Lightroom Photo Library”. Open up this folder and create a new folder inside it called “My Photos”.
4. Create a new Lightroom catalog:
In Lightroom, go to File>New Catalog. For the location, specify the My Lightroom Photo Library folder you created above (not the My Photos folder). For File Name, call it “My Lightroom Catalog“. Click Save (or whatever the choice is on the Mac). Lightroom will relaunch with this new blank catalog. (Your old one hasn’t been deleted, Lightroom just isn’t using it at this point.)
Go to Edit (Lightroom on a Mac)>Preferences>General, and under Default Catalog, When Starting Up Use This Catalog, click on the dropdown and choose the catalog that you just created.
Still under Preferences, click on the Presets tab. If the box is checked next to “Store Presets with Catalog”, then in order to have all the presets and templates that you created, you will need to copy your Lightroom Settings folder from the old catalog folder to the new one. (If the box isn’t checked or you don’t care about preserving any presets or templates, skip this step.) Click on the Show button to go to your new Lightroom catalog folder. Open it, and delete the Lightroom Settings folder. Open another Mac Finder or Windows Explorer window, and go to your old Lightroom catalog folder (from step 2). Open it and Ctl/Cmd-drag the Lightroom Settings folder into the new catalog folder in the first window. Now close these windows, and close and restart Lightroom.
5. Have Lightroom’s Import Process create a copy of all your photos and reorganize them:
You are going to import photos from everywhere you currently have them, have Lightroom create copies and organize them correctly, and then when this is all done and you have verified that all is well, you will delete the original versions.
In the Lightroom import dialog, on the left, choose a source for existing photos (If there are photos in your Pictures folder, do this one first, then return and do other locations where you have photos.) Be sure to check Import Photos from Subfolders at the top of the Source panel. Choose Copy, and on the right, down in the Destination panel, navigate to and click on your new My Photos folder inside your My Lightroom Photo Library folder, so that My Photos is highlighted. At the top of the Destination panel choose “organize by date”, and from the drop down below this, choose yyyy/mm-dd or yyyy/yyyy-mm-dd. (The “/” after the year is important!) This will put all of your images for each day’s shooting into separate subfolders, within year folders. In the top right of the Import Dialog in the File Handling panel, be sure to check “Don’t Import Suspected Duplicates”.
Repeat with every different source, taking notes on where these photos are coming from. Because you have “Don’t Import Suspected Duplicates” checked, Lightroom will just put a copy of the photos in your new folder if it hasn’t already.
6. Reveal your folder structure.
The Folders panel in the Library module now most likely just has a list of date folders within year folders. Right-click (or Cmd-click) on one of the year folders and choose Add Parent Folder. This will reveal your My Photos folder. Right-click (or Cmd-click) on My Photos, and Add Parent Folder to reveal My Lightroom Photo Library. Right-click on this, Add Parent Folder to reveal wherever this lives — now you can be clear where all your photos are.
7. Rename all your date folders.
This isn’t fun if you have a lot, but it is a one-time investment — don’t skip it! Click on each date folder to see what’s in it, then right-click on the folder name, choose Rename, and add a description of the shoot.
8. Work with your catalog for a while.
If all went well and nothing is missing, you are ready for the final two steps:
9. Delete the original photos.
Using Windows Explorer/My Computer or Mac Finder, go back to each photo source that you noted earlier and delete your original photos. Don’t delete anything from your new My Lightroom Photo Library folder!
10. Delete the old Lightroom Catalog.
Go back to the location noted in step 2 and delete the catalog folder (most likely named Lightroom.)
11. Sit back and admire how organized your photo library is!!
Once you have enjoyed this for a bit, it is time to start keywording your photos!
What if your photos are organized reasonably well, but you just want to start over with a new Lightroom catalog? In this case, you will do 2, 3, 4, 5, 8 and 10. In step 5, the Import, choose Add rather than Copy, so that your photos are just added to the catalog, and stay where they currently are on your hard drive.
Thank you to Mike Nelson Pedde for his valuable feedback on this article.
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laura, thanks for the very informative article!
i just bought your dvd by the way, and have found it VERY helpful. congratulations on a great job that is very concise, clear, and to-the-point!
one question: as i was looking at my folder structure, i noticed that i have a slightly different one than you describe here(i’m on a mac) – part of it on purpose, part of it i have no idea how
i use one catalog for work(which i didn’t custom name), and one for personal(which i created recently to separate personal/work photos going forward, and named “personalcatalog”). they both reside under a master folder i named “Lightroom”.
in that fodler, i noticed that i have *four* different lightroom catalogs(and related previews): one is lightroom 2 catalog+previews, and three lightroom3 catalogs+previews(numbered with -2, -3 at the end, and sized 901kb, 877kb, 398Mb, respectively; curiously lr3 catalog#1 doesn’t have a preview file there).
my question is:
*can i safely delete the lr2 catalog, now that i’ve been using lr3 for a long time?
*any idea what those extra lr3 catalogs might be, and how to safely consolidate them? lr shows ~20,000 images when my work catalog is open.
sorry for the long message, but i am fairly confused&wanted to relay the right info to you. any pointers would be highly appreciated. thanks so much in advance!
Hi murat, I’m glad the DVD has been helpful. Yes, you can delete the Lightroom 2 catalog and previews. I am not sure why you have 3 Lightroom 3 catalogs, but I would first understand which one is your current one (by looking at the date modified, or, in Lightroom, the name will show at the top of your screen, above the menu bar.) Then I would open up the other catalogs by double-clicking on the .lrcat file. I suspect that they are just old versions that can be deleted. If not and you want to incorporate them, reopen LR with the main catalog, and go to File>Import from Catalog, and choose one of the older ones. In the dialog, I would choose not to update anything that it finds in both catalogs.
laura,
Great site the clearest explanations of LR Ive found.
My question is: Ive made a mess of my filing system though I use Keyworks to keep track my images not folders. However I’d like to clean it up and also combine 4 catalogs into one. Would the your above method work?
Blaine, yes, since this method starts with a new catalog, it would work — you would follow the instructions above (saving your work) for all 4. However, if you really don’t need to clean up your folder system, then just combine the four catalogs into one. Decide which is going to be your main one (or set up a new one as described in the post), then do a File>Import from Catalog to incorporate the other three into the main one.
Laura
Somehow I have many duplicate images files on different catalogs – so probably the best method for me would be to cleanup folder system even though I use keywords instead of folders to keep track of images.
Laura,
My LR3 Catalog was going fine with folders for the years, etc. Then something happened and now when I download they don’t show up in any folder. I can only find them by going now by going to all photographs ans scrolling to the bottom of 5000 images.
Second question, it seemed in your article that you said you kept all your images on your computer and did not put them onto an external hard drive. It seems this would overwhelm your storage. Maybe I misunderstood.
Hi John, to find out what folder your images are going into, once you find them in All Photographs, right-click on one and choose Show in Folder in Library. This will select that folder in the Folders panel. Going forward you will need to fix your import settings. Go to the Destination panel in the bottom right of the Import Dialog, click on the master folder that your photos go into (Pictures?), and then at the top of the Destination panel, choose Organize by Date, and one of the year/date formats.
On your second question, I have a 1 TB internal drive, so it has worked fine for me up until now to keep my catalog and images on it. However, in fact I am now getting close to running out of space, so I will be transferring my library to an external drive.
[...] Help! My Photos Are Completely Unorganized and Lightroom is a Mess! How Can I Just Start All Over? [...]
[...] Finally, Larura looks at how to organize yourself (man do I hear this alot. Its like the digital version of Hoarders sometimes). [...]
HI Laura,
Great site and i have just brought the DVD.
Two questions. I have lots of images Is it really the best to have LR catalog on and external hard drive. What happens when I want to work on location? I understand I can’t keep my images on my laptop but could I keep my catalog on it and images on hard drive?
Would you advise using different catalogues for different jobs?
THank you!
Hi Kate, if you regularly work offsite, you could keep both your images and catalog on an external drive, and take it with you. This way you always have everything.
I advise against separate catalogs for each job. What if you want to pull together all your 5 star photos? Separate catalogs means you can’t without recombining all the catalogs — there is a brick wall between the jobs.
I’m very new to lightroom, thought I was rearranging folders (within lightroom!) to be better organized and somehow I managed to mess it up more, getting question marks all over the place. I felt I just needed to start all over again and came across your blog. I have not tried it yet, (will have to wait until I get home from work), but I feel my sense of dread after screwing up is slowly fading away. Thanks in advance. There may be hope for me yet in Lightroom 3.
Good luck with it, Cathy!
[...] Help! My Photos Are Completely Unorganized and Lightroom is a Mess. How Can I Just Start All Over? [...]
[...] Help, My Photos Are Completely Unorganized and Lightroom is a Mess. How Can I Just Start Over? [...]
I have been searching for a way to create photo albums and use drag-and-drop to resequence the photos. Renaming files to force a different display order is just too much work. I use a PC with Windows 7. I’ve been trying to find out if Lightroom 3 supports drag-n-drop to sequence photos? Any suggestions?
Check out this old video of mine, Peter. (The answer is yes, you can rearrange by dragging.)
http://laurashoe.com/2008/11/22/why-cant-i-rearrange-my-images-in-lightroom/
I am about to load a new lap top and re load Lightroom. I am a new user and wondering if it is best to load pictures onto lap top in My Pictures and then bring into Lightroom or bring them straight into Lightroom. I take underwater pictures as well as family and travel pics so would I need 3 catalogues ? I will purchase your DVD that has been recommend by a friend or is it available to download? I have been confused with all this for a while which is why I have not yet thrown myself into it all but just played. One last thing should I load the LR4 beta or just go with my LR 3.
I look forward to hearing back and also following you on Facebook.
Sue in Perth West Australia
(if your ever here I am sure we could get some workshops happening for you as there are very limited available to us!)
Hi Sue, thank you for contacting me. I should have a post on the topic of moving to a new computer, but unfortunately it is still on my to-do list. Here is one method, from Victoria Bampton, aka the Lightroom Queen.
http://www.lightroomqueen.com/2009/02/28/how-do-i-move-lightroom-to-a-new-computer/
I recommend only one catalog — there is no need for you (and most people, including myself) to have what amounts to a brick wall between your different types of photos.
Thank you for your interest in my DVD — yes, it is also available as a download.
I wouldn’t go with the beta, as it will not allow you to upgrade your LR 3 catalog.
I’d love to visit Australia some day! I will keep your offer in mind – thank you!
I realize this is a bit late, but there is a much easier way of doing this and without losing virtual copies.
Instead, use the “export as catalog” feature, delete the originals, then import the catalog. I’m not sure that it keeps flags, it might, but the virtual copies should all still be there and the photos should be put neatly into folders according to your settings.
nevermind, this doesn’t work.
Hi Zach, thank you for taking the time to post the suggestion — sorry I didn’t have a chance to review it sooner.
I have all my photos in LR, but want to move them to an external hard drive. I am not sure how to do this. I want to do this in LR so it knows where my photos are.
Chris, you will use Lightroom’s Folders panel to drag your folders from the internal drive to the external drive. If you do not see your external drive in the Folders panel, the easiest way to get it to show up is to, outside of Lightroom using Finder or Windows Explorer, put one photo over on it, and then in Lightroom, import that photo.
Is there any way to delete folders in the Destination Panel? I blindly began working away with LR3 with no instructions and now I have the same folders on the right (des. panel) as on the left panel. I want to completely redo my Destination Panel. Thank you
Hi Rosanna, both the Source and Destination panels just show you your hard drive. With the Source panel you tell LR where your photos are currently, and, if you are Copying or Moving them, in the Destination panel you tell LR where to Copy or Move them to.
These videos on Importing might be helpful:
http://laurashoe.com/2012/03/08/getting-started-with-lightroom-3-or-lightroom-4-importing-photos-and-videos/
laura
how do you work on two computors. I travel a lot and can do keywording while waiting at airports. how does this transfer to my home computor. I usually have an external drive. A friend lost it on her travel, now I am not sure if I should take that with me. help
Hi jayanthy, thanks for your note. Whether you travel or not, I would back up that external hard drive — multiple times. This way you can travel with it without fear. Alternatively, you can use the approach in this article:
http://laurashoe.com/2008/11/17/moving-lightroom-work-between-a-laptop-and-a-desktop/
Laura, I just want to say that in a crowd of very good LR tutorials and instructors, YOU really do shine and stand out from the crowd. You provide such clear and concise instructions it’s actually a pleasant learning experience when I delve into one of your many helpful tutorials. Hopefully one day I’ll be able to take one of your classes in person. Thanks again.
Thanks so much, Terrell! I am happy to hear that my tutorials have been useful to you, and I appreciate you taking the time to leave this wonderful note!