# Changing folder structure -> date ordered



## workavoidance (Jun 11, 2013)

Hi there,

I currently have the following folder structure:

/LR/0001
/LR/0002
/LR/0003
...

The contents of these folders are just the point in time (batch) when I imported them into LR. I would ideally like to switch to a date based folder structure, something like this:

2013/01
2013/02
...

Obviously I would prefer to use the mata-data inside the image to put them in the correct folders. Almost like I was importing them again and asking LR to sort them into folders based on date of capture.  Is there any way to make this transition without doing it by hand?  Or... should I just use collections?

Thanks,
Jon


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## erro (Jun 11, 2013)

You can't get LR to change the location of your already imported photos.

New photos that you import from now on can use one of LR's built-in date based folder schemes. Just pick the one you feel suits you best. I go with the YYY/MM/DD version.

If you feel you need to move your old photos you can do this by filtering for date/month/whatever, create a new folder for that date/month/whatever in your new folder hierarchy (inside LR), and drag those photos there (inside LR). However, your time may be better placed on adding metadata or developing photos or something. If your photos have correct time in metadata, you'll always be able to find them. That said, I can understand the "need" to have all photos stored in the correct folders. I've done this journey myself. And it didn't take very long time to sort all my photos out. Did I gain something from it? Not really. But it "feels good" knowing that all photos are in their correct date based folders. It also makes it possible for me to use the folder panel as a year/month/day "filter".


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## workavoidance (Jun 11, 2013)

Robert,

Thanks for the quick and complete reply - I'm glad I'm not the only one who has the slightly irrationally desire to 'tidy' this up.

I suspect if I actually start moving the files around by hand then I'll quickly run into naming conflicts. Maybe the best thing to do is simply start with a date based system from today and then spend my time using collections correctly to group photos into events and themes. Maybe I can slowly start working back in time whenever I have five minutes and over the coming months I'll get it done.

Thanks again,
Jon


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## johnbeardy (Jun 11, 2013)

I don't think it's irrational - quite the contrary! The irrational thing is to leave a mess alone. 

For how long have you been using LR? How many pictures are involved?

John


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## erro (Jun 11, 2013)

What names do you have on your files currently? Are you using the standard camera names? Then you might ru into duplicate names if you have the "same" filename during the same day (if you have YYY/MM/DD folders). Or the same month if you use YYY/MM folders. Only you can determine the chances of that happening.

Personally, I rename all my photos to YYYY-MM-DD hhmmss seq.JPG/NEF/DNG. That way, all photos names become unique down to a second, and even if two photos are taken the very same second they will still (probably) have different original sequence numbers. It's a great way to get files to sort in correct chronological order, even if you shoot with multiple cameras at the same time.


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## workavoidance (Jun 12, 2013)

johnbeardy said:


> I don't think it's irrational - quite the contrary! The irrational thing is to leave a mess alone.
> 
> For how long have you been using LR? How many pictures are involved?
> 
> John



I agree, but what I have isn't really a mess - it's tidy but not very easy to navigate!
I have been using LR for a while now, so have about 20k photos.

Thanks for the reply!


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## workavoidance (Jun 12, 2013)

Hi there,

Yeah, standard camera names so I think I would have to take it down to the day or I'm fairly sure I would run into conflicts. Do you know how LR handles conflicts when you try to move images around - does it offer a resolution?  Also, does LR offer any bulk renaming options, ideally based on metadata?

Moving forward from today I think I'll adopt something similar to what you've outlined above - then think about how to retroactively apply that convention to all previous photos.

Thanks,
Jon


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## Tony Jay (Jun 12, 2013)

workavoidance said:


> ...Also, does LR offer any bulk renaming options, ideally based on metadata?...
> /QUOTE]
> 
> Jon, Lr offers extensive ways of renaming images in bulk.
> ...


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## johnbeardy (Jun 12, 2013)

Remember that you're going to invalidate your existing backup by changing filenames and restructuring, because folders and images in the backup will no longer correspond to the new structure and names. So if you do proceed, I'd suggest a complete backup immediately afterwards. Personally, I'd leave alone and get things "right" from now on, putting that effort into other ways to navigate (collections, smart collections, favourite sources in filmstrip, filter presets, keywords and other metadata).

John


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## clee01l (Jun 12, 2013)

johnbeardy said:


> ...Personally, I'd leave alone and get things "right" from now on, putting that effort into other ways to navigate (collections, smart collections, favourite sources in filmstrip, filter presets, keywords and other metadata).


John isn't the only one that is anal about this. It is an obsessive trait.  My original poorly structured folder scheme was in place before I started using LR. I settled on a "YYYY/mm-dd-yyyy" import folder structure for future imports. Then as I had time (time spent avoiding work), I used the Filterbar metadata file on data to sort my inventory a few images at a time into a YYYY/Mmm folder scheme that I created in the LR Folder panel.  I even assigned a temporary keyword (@2Bworked) to all of my images that had incomplete words. I worked these off as time permits. Nearly 5 years later I still have keyword work to do on some of these older images that in truth aren't really important.

Still later, I adopted and modified John's Workflow Smart Collections to manage my workflow. Using John's Workflow Smart Collections I came to realize that I did not need or use the folder panel at all. Once the Folder panel is hidden, all of that sloppy folder structure is "out of sight, out of mind" and much easier to ignore until you are desperate to find something to do to avoid doing real work. 

So, my advice to you and all of the other anal retentive like us out there is to hide the Folder panel and ask yourself questions about the image(s) that you want to find. The answers to those questions then become the keywords and static collections that you need to do real work on your image inventory.


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## erro (Jun 12, 2013)

And for me, who have a nicely YYYY/MM/DD-ordered folder panel, this provides me with yet another filtering option. I never use the date filtering in the "Filter bar", I do that in the folders panel. One advantage is that the folder panel is much larger and easier to scroll in than the Filter bar.

And... when you import a photo, it *must* be stored somewhere. So why not store it - automatically - in a folder that is unambiguent, and that is created on the fly for you.


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## clee01l (Jun 12, 2013)

erro said:


> And for me, who have a nicely YYYY/MM/DD-ordered folder panel, this provides me with yet another filtering option. I never use the date filtering in the "Filter bar", I do that in the folders panel. One advantage is that the folder panel is much larger and easier to scroll in than the Filter bar.
> 
> And... when you import a photo, it *must* be stored somewhere. So why not store it - automatically - in a folder that is unambiguent, and that is created on the fly for you.


I don't think anyone is questioning the merits of a Date named folder scheme.  It is probably the choice that most of us make going forward with new imports.  For me the Filterbar was an expedient to sorting my old images into a date order for correcting the originally imported folder structure.   
As I said earlier I don't use the Folder panel in my workflow.  Instead I have Workflow smart collections that (as their names imply) assist me in completeing my post processing.
*Smart Collections* that I use for date related post processing:

Shot Today
Shot Yesterday
Shot in the Last Week
Shot in the last month


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## creativeoutletimages (Jun 13, 2013)

I've had the same frustration with LR.  I do often want to reorganize my folder tree structure within Lightroom to a new method.  I go back and forth around how I import my video files. I would like the ability to "re-import" files already in the catalog into a new file structure.  The only way to do this without moving individuals files / directories and is to remove the files from the catalog and re-import.


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