# How can one move images from Lightroom to a folder outside of Lightroom / a folder not available in Lightroom?



## Biff (Nov 14, 2018)

How can one move images from Lightroom to a folder outside of Lightroom / a folder not available in Lightroom? The images are not needed in Lightroom, shall not be displayed there.


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## clee01l (Nov 14, 2018)

The folder panel shows initially only folders that contain cataloged images.  If you have a folder that does not display in the folder panel you need to first make LR aware of it.    In the folder panel, click on the (+) located on the right side of the Folder panel header.   In the context menu that opens choose "Add Folder..."  This will open an Explorer Window where you can then navigate to the folder that you want to add.   Choose the desired folder and it will now appear in the folder panel.   You can now drag images (or other folders) within LR to this folder and LR will update the path of these images in the catalog and move the image files.


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## Biff (Nov 14, 2018)

Thank you very much!

I want those images to be removed from Lightroom completely. There is no other method than to add the folder to Lightroom first? And after the images hast been moved to that folder remove that folder from Lightroom?


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## Hal P Anderson (Nov 14, 2018)

You can simply delete them from Lightroom and then use Windows Explorer to move them wherever you want. If you want to keep whatever edits you made, you'll need to export the files to the new folder.


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## Biff (Nov 14, 2018)

OK, so I will do it, many thanks!


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## johnbeardy (Nov 14, 2018)

Why not keep them in Lightroom? If they aren't worth keeping in Lightroom, are they worth keeping?


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## Biff (Nov 15, 2018)

Yes, actually they are, I have photos for the recollection or just to show somebody how something looks like or to "copy" information and photos for the website / galery.


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## Dan Marchant (Nov 15, 2018)

Biff said:


> Yes, actually they are, I have photos for the recollection or just to show somebody how something looks like or to "copy" information and photos for the website / galery.


OK but why do you need to delete them from Lightroom? Why not just leave them.

If you delete them from LR you lose any edits.


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## Biff (Nov 15, 2018)

There are no edits for them, I do not edit such photos because they are not made for editing, they  just show information I want to know / keep, they are not made to get a good photo. I didn't make them to show them in a galery, on my wesbsite.



> OK but why do you need to delete them from Lightroom? Why not just leave them.


Well, in Lightroom should be "good" photos only. When I go through these photos in Lightroom I do not want to wonder to which groupthey belong, I do not want to see photos which are needless  in Lightroom.


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## Umberto Cocca (Nov 15, 2018)

You can plan to start using the best and most underused feature of LR: collections! 

Sent using Tapatalk


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## Biff (Nov 15, 2018)

> You can plan to start using the best and most underused feature of LR: collections!


Yes, yes, actaully I had considered to plan it already. But otherweise I want to keep it extremely simple, so I guess, I just would not need such (besides of "Recently edited") Do you mean in context to the photos to be removed from Lightroom? Or else? Why?


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## Jimmsp (Nov 15, 2018)

One question that I don't see asked or answered - have you rated and keyworded all your photos?

If the answer is yes, collections become easy and separation of the photos you don't want will be easy.


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## Biff (Nov 15, 2018)

> One question that I don't see asked or answered - have you rated and keyworded all your photos?


No, not a single one.


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## Jimmsp (Nov 15, 2018)

OK - next question. How many photos are we talking about; and about how many in each category?


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## Biff (Nov 15, 2018)

5368 photos including different variations per photo, so I guess at the end 500 to 1000 photos for the gallery.

Well, the categories. At the moment I do not know how to group some photos or most of them, couldn't find all of the categories yet, but I assume 5 or even less, but maximum I would say (at the moment) may be 8, 10 (but better less, I think) categories or so, no sub categories are planned. Very hard to say.


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## Jimmsp (Nov 15, 2018)

Biff said:


> 5368 photos including different variations per photo, so I guess at the end 500 to 1000 photos for the gallery.



Well, in all honesty, this is not a lot of photos. You could go through these and separate them out very quickly.
While there are many ways to do it, I would recommend starting with keywords.
You could go through them all and give all of the photos you initially wanted to delete the keyword "informational"
Then you could have 2 collections:  those with the keyword informational, and  those without.
Then for all you non-informational photos, start going through them and adding other keywords.

Give some thought to the structure, and then start in. You will be done very quickly.
There are a lot of examples of keyword structures - but choose one that means something to you. Most have top level words  or groups like Person, Place , & Subject. I have a 4th one I call Conceptual Description which picks up things like color, emotion, hot, cold, etc. Under Subject I have a lot of subcategories for animals, buildings, etc..
As you keyword them also rate them with stars. Most of us assign 5 stars to our very very best.


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## Biff (Nov 15, 2018)

OK, yes, that sounds good. And after having done that, giving keywords, stars, creating collections, etc. Lightroom automatically can export (to the disk in different folders according to the keywords) and / or upload the photos according to their keywords, stars, etc.


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## Jimmsp (Nov 15, 2018)

Biff said:


> OK, yes, that sounds good. And after having done that, giving keywords, stars, creating collections, etc. Lightroom automatically can export (to the disk in different folders according to the keywords) and / or upload the photos according to their keywords, stars, etc.


Well, LR really doesn't do an export "automatically". When you want to export a file, you have to tell LR how to do it and where  you want it to go. 
But a LR export is not like a move; it creates another copy of a file.  If you want to simply "move" them, then you can simply drag them to another folder on another hard drive. They will be off the original drive, on a second drive, but still in the catalog. LR will know where they are.
If you want some or all of them back, you can just select them in LR and drag them back to whatever drive you want. 
But you don't have to move them back. As long as the drive is hooked up, LR will view them and do whatever processing you want to do.


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## Jimmsp (Nov 15, 2018)

One additional thought.
Before you do all of this, just try it with a few photos - 10 will do.
Give them a keyword, select them/ filter them in the Library under Keyword list, and then after selecting all of them , drag them to a new folder.
This will give you a feel as to how this works.


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## Biff (Nov 15, 2018)

Yes, I understand.

With automatically I meant, Lightroom can create folders according to the keywords / stars and such of the images, e.g. a folder called "Animals" where the images with the keyword "Animal" come in. Or upload the images according to the rubrics according to the keywords to one's website.


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## Biff (Nov 15, 2018)

> One additional thought.
> Before you do all of this, just try it with a few photos - 10 will do.
> Give them a keyword, select them/ filter them in the Library under Keyword list, and then after selecting all of them , drag them to a new folder.
> This will give you a feel as to how this works.


Yes, good idea, I will try it like that, thank you.


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## Jimmsp (Nov 15, 2018)

In LR, if you want a folder called animals, you can create that folder in LR in the Library mode. Then you can filter all you photos for the keyword animal, select them all, then drag them to that folder you just created called animals.


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## Jimmsp (Nov 15, 2018)

Another note - a photo can reside in only one folder. However it can reside in multiple collections. 
This is a strength of collections.
For instance you can have a collection for animals, a collection for a state like AZ, and a collection for bears - and the photo can reside in all 3 collections.

And you can have a smart collection, say one that looks for the keyword animal. Then every time you give a photo the keyword animal, it also shows up in that smart collection - automatically. No dragging necessary.


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## Biff (Nov 15, 2018)

> In LR, if you want a folder called animals, you can create that folder in LR in the Library mode. Then you can filter all you photos for the keyword animal, select them all, then drag them to that folder you just created called animals.



OK, that's the way how it works with creating folders with names of the keywords, so Lightroom cannot do that automatically.



> Another note - a photo can reside in only one folder. However it can reside in multiple collections.
> This is a strength of collections.
> For instance you can have a collection for animals, a collection for a state like AZ, and a collection for bears - and the photo can reside in all 3 collections.
> 
> And you can have a smart collection, say one that looks for the keyword animal. Then every time you give a photo the keyword animal, it also shows up in that smart collection - automatically. No dragging necessary.


Yes, that is a great option I would like to use. If only I had the keywords added to the images.


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## Jimmsp (Nov 15, 2018)

So start keywording.  It won't be as bad as you think.


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## Biff (Nov 14, 2018)

How can one move images from Lightroom to a folder outside of Lightroom / a folder not available in Lightroom? The images are not needed in Lightroom, shall not be displayed there.


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## Biff (Nov 15, 2018)

Alright, thank you.


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## Biff (Nov 15, 2018)

I have to add the keywords hier:






Is that right? With a space between them?


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## Jimmsp (Nov 15, 2018)

add a comma


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## Jimmsp (Nov 15, 2018)

Also, take a good look at How do I assign keywords to my photos? | The Lightroom Queen

Victoria has done a great job with these articles.

And then Keywords


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## Biff (Nov 16, 2018)

OK, a comma without space.

Ah great, many thanks for the links! Very nice!


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## Johan Elzenga (Nov 16, 2018)

You can add a space too for readability, but a comma is what separates two keywords.


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## Biff (Nov 16, 2018)

Good idea, yes, that's better, thank you!


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## Jimmsp (Nov 16, 2018)

And when you finish with keywords, or even finish a test group - take a look at what collections can do and how to organize them.
Collections


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## Biff (Nov 16, 2018)

Yes, I will do so, many thanks, Jim!


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## clee01l (Nov 16, 2018)

If photos are important enough to keep for what ever reason, then you need to manage them.   Lightroom is your image data manager. It should be your only one.  If you are wanting to find these images to share (again for what ever reason) then they are most easily found using an image management tool.  As others have suggested keywords and collections are the way to organize your images.    Any time you find yourself using folders and visually scanning image by image to identify the one you are looking for you are not using your image manager most efficiently.   Create a collection called "Not worth Keeping" or "FYI" and assign these photos to it.    You move photos to different disk drives for space management reasons and no other purpose.  Filesystem folders are not an efficient method to organize images.  This is why Lightroom was invented in the first place to organize and manage your image inventory.


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## Biff (Nov 16, 2018)

Yes, indeed, I have to get used to move images only within Lightroom so it can keep track of them.  Above all to manage the photos on other drives, so I always will have a preview even if the drives are not connected (if I see it right) and one even could manage, organzize them (add keywords, collections and such), even if the drive is not connected.. At the moment I generally only have those photos in Lightroom which I want to edit (for a gallery). So I guess, I indeed should import all of my photos without any exception , yes, and manage them with keywords, collections, etc.


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## clee01l (Nov 16, 2018)

Biff said:


> So I guess, I indeed should import all of my photos without any exception , yes, and manage them with keywords, collections, etc.


Yes, I have not found a more efficient image manager. The non-destructive editing capability of LR is sometimes are inadequate and requires a more robust approach from an external editor.   I could possibly be persuaded to switch from LR if there were a better data asset manager.   AFAIK, no one has attempted to improve upon the DAM capabilities of LR.


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## Johan Elzenga (Nov 16, 2018)

clee01l said:


> AFAIK, no one has attempted to improve upon the DAM capabilities of LR.


Apple did with Aperture, but unfortunately that’s history.


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## Biff (Nov 16, 2018)

I have scattered all over the drive images and over external drives. Should Lightroom scan the entire drive or should I add the folders containing images manually, that would be a  big effort, I guess?



> I could possibly be persuaded to switch from LR if there were a better data asset manager. AFAIK, no one has attempted to improve upon the DAM capabilities of LR.


Besides of the DAM capabilities are there capabilities of Lightroom being less good? Apart from the editing possibilities only a pixel editor can do?
I have seen some tests (do not know how reliable such is) on the Internet showing Lightroom is the best in its category. May be RawTherapee is not that bad as well.


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## Jimmsp (Nov 16, 2018)

Biff said:


> I have scattered all over the drive images and over external drives. Should Lightroom scan the entire drive or should I add the folders containing images manually, that would be a  big effort, I guess?
> .


If it were me, I would let LR scan the whole drive (or each drive in turn) assuming that you do not have an upper level folder like Pictures that has all the folders in it. If you did, then you could just scan Pictures.



Biff said:


> Besides of the DAM capabilities are there capabilities of Lightroom being less good? Apart from the editing possibilities only a pixel editor can do?
> I have seen some tests (do not know how reliable such is) on the Internet showing Lightroom is the best in its category. May be RawTherapee is not that bad as well.


Now you are entering into areas where there are lots and lots of opinions. 
In my opinion, I think that LR is the best and most rounded of all the image editors; and I have tried most of them.
Is LR best at everything - no.  Some areas are good, but not necessarily the best. For instance, I use Topaz Detail  to do my creative sharpening. Some people prefer the noise reduction of other packages.

But when you combine LR Classic with Photoshop - I don't think that you can beat it.


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## clee01l (Nov 16, 2018)

JohanElzenga said:


> Apple did with Aperture, but unfortunately that’s history.


I think the operative word in my earlier post was "improve".


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## Biff (Nov 16, 2018)

OK, scanning the entire drive, no single picture folder.

QUOTE]Now you are entering into areas where there are lots and lots of opinions. [/QUOTE]
Whoops, I shouldn't have done that, the color spaces already are enough for me.



> In my opinion, I think that LR is the best and most rounded of all the image editors; and I have tried most of them.
> Is LR best at everything - no. Some areas are good, but not necessarily the best. For instance, I use Topaz Detail to do my creative sharpening. Some people prefer the noise reduction of other packages.


Sounds very laborious to find one's own workflow, much testing, trieing, which part of a program to use for which edits and the order those processes should be done, e.g. sharpening at the end, at the beginning or somewhere in the middle and such.



> But when you combine LR Classic with Photoshop - I don't think that you can beat it.


Yes, I can imagine that.


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## Dan Marchant (Nov 17, 2018)

Biff said:


> OK, that's the way how it works with creating folders with names of the keywords, so Lightroom cannot do that automatically.


No, Lightroom doesn't do that because moving images from folder to folder is quite limiting and inefficient. Lightroom used Collections instead - which are virtual folders that provide for much greater flexibility. 

Your computer only allows a file to be in one folder. If you take a photo of your Mum and her dog in Chicago does it go in the "Mum" folder, the "Chicago" folder or the "Animals" folder? If you put it in the Mum folder then you won't see the dog if you look in the Animals folder because the file isn't there. 

Lightroom allows one file to appear in multiple Collections at the same time. Create a Smart Collection for Mum, one for Chicago and one for Animals. Add the relevant keywords to the image and voila... it appears in all three collections.


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## Biff (Nov 17, 2018)

> Lightroom allows one file to appear in multiple Collections at the same time. Create a Smart Collection for Mum, one for Chicago and one for Animals. Add the relevant keywords to the image and voila... it appears in all three collections.


Yes, I understand,, collections can be understood as a (little) database finding the same image in different ways by using different (many) keywords, flags, starts, etc. So no picture has to be moved anymore (and shouldn't).


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## MarkNicholas (Nov 17, 2018)

Jimmsp said:


> So start keywording.  It won't be as bad as you think.



I would agree but it does depend. If you have 1000 photos taken at a football match then it would be pretty straight forward. If you have random photos of many things taken in different places then it involves a lot more work.


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## clee01l (Nov 17, 2018)

MarkNicholas said:


> If you have random photos of many things taken in different places then it involves a lot more work.


For this I use the Keyword List panel. It shows all of the keywords in your catalog with a checkbox to the left.   In grid view, you can select an image or group of images and check the box next to the appropriate keyword to assign that keyword to the selected images.
Sometimes a keyword might apply to ALMOST all of the images but a few.  In that case it is easier to assign the keyword to ALL of the images then uncheck the keyword box for the few selected images to unassigned that keyword.


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## Biff (Nov 17, 2018)

So already when importing the images to Lightroom it automatically gathers all of the keywords and add them to the keyword list panel.

Can Lightroom rename more than one image / file name with a keyword or more or add a keyword to the file name of the image? And vice versa, can Lightroom add the file name or a part of it to the keyword list?


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