# Issues importing Photos library into Lightroom Classic



## Anamar (Mar 4, 2019)

Hi! I have been using Lightroom Classic for around three years and loving it even with the steep learning curve. I recently got a new laptop and while importing my Lightroom Classic library I somehow deleted all the photos in the Adobe cloud. Long story short, I decided that since all my photos were from my Iphone and backed up in the Apple Cloud and in my camera, I would just start fresh and do a new clean import into Lightroom CC Classic. I proceeded to create a new Lightroom Classic library. Then I opened the Photos app (which I never use) and downloaded all the originals to my Mac (I have over 40K photos). Then I  tried several things in my effort to import my photos library into Lightroom:

1) I first created an alias of the photos library and tried and import into Lightroom from that file. Even though I checked for photos to be organized by date, almost all the photos ended up in my 2019 folder. I assumed there was an issue with the photos metadata but everything seemed fine when I looked at the metadata in the Photos app and when I clicked on several test photos from the files in finder. 

2) Then I tried to do an export of the photos from the Apple Photos program selecting to export the unmodified originals. Yet, I had exactly the same issue. 

3) Finally, I decided to import the photos through the desktop version of Lightroom CC . Once the library was synced (with only 36: out of the 41K+ photos), I closed Lightroom CC and opened Lightroom CC Classic and had the system sync the photos through mobile sync. Through this method, most of the photos went to the right date folders but out of around 41K photos, 36K imported so I am missing around 7K photos and the sync appears to be done. See images attached to see the discrepancy of the photo quantities by year in Mac Photos and the ones in Lightroom Classic.  I then thought that maybe I could try importing the Photos library again into Lightroom year by year to see if would import only the new photos. However, when I did that the system did not identify duplicates and created duplicates of the group of photos I tried to import (I tried this last step with just a few photos as a test)

I have been reading and searching for over a month now trying to come up with a way to fix this. Any help would be GREATLY appreciated!! 

Thanks!


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## Califdan (Mar 5, 2019)

Hi,

I'm not sure I'm following your situation.   Probably just issue with specific words you use which may be misleading.  So, some questions  but my understanding is that

1)  Prior to getting the new laptop  were you running both "LR Classic CC"  (the desktop centric one that's been around over a decade) and "Lightroom CC" (the cloud centric one introduced in October 1017)

2) on the old computer all the images you have are represented in LR Classic and thus  the physical image files were on the old computer or an external hard drive (EHD)

3)  After getting the new computer, after installing LR you created a new catalog and  re-imported your images.   I'm not clear why you had to re-export them from Apple Photos as they should have been available on the old computer and you could have just copied the over, so some further explanation here would be useful.   However, if you did indeed start fresh with a new Lighroom Catalog (you used the term Album which is a CC version term, not a Classic version term)  and turned on Sync,  it explains why all the images on the cloud went away (assuming you told LR that it was OK to sync the cloud witb the new catalog when the warning message came up)

4)  I don't know about the  attempt  to use an alias pointed at the old "Apple Photos" image library or why that would put all your images in 2019 but there should have been no need to do that.

5)  An Export if  originals  from Apple Photos to your hard drive should have worked, but again, if you were able to get your Apple Photos folders from the old computer to the new one, it is unclear why you could not also get the image files that LR was pointing to over to the new computer as well.

So,  If you still have access to your old computer.  Forget everything you did so far.  Instead, copy the folder containing the LR catalog (this is a file ending in ".lrcat" from the old computer to the new one (ignore those that are in Time Machine or in a "backup" folder).  The catalog is usually in "Pictures -> Lightroom".   Also copy all the images that LR pointed to from the old computer to the new computer.  These are the folders you see in the LR "Folders" panel in LR on the old computer.   In the folders Panel in LR,  Right click (or <ctrl>+click) on a high level folder and select "Show Parent" if you want to see the next higher level folder - or just rest the mouse pointer on a folder name and it will show you the full path.  

Once these items are copied to the new computer, double click on the catalog file you copied over (the one ending in ".lrcat".   If the new version of LR on the new computer is a newer full release number than on the old computer, LR may ask if it is OK to upgrade the catalog to the new version.  Let it do so.

At this point , come back here and provide a status.  Everythng may be fine, or you may need to re-link your image folders.    In addition, if  your prior attempts did wind up removing all the images from the Adobe Cloud,  you will again get the pop up asking if you want to sync this catalog with the cloud in place of the other one (the one with no or incorrectly dated images).  Tell it yes.  Depending on how many images it may take several days or weeks to re upload all the images.

Dan


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## Anamar (Mar 5, 2019)

Dan, 

Thanks so much for your detailed answer and my apologies for any confusion my post may have created. Following my answers to your comments and observations: 

1) Prior to getting the new laptop were you running both "LR Classic CC" (the desktop centric one that's been around over a decade) and "Lightroom CC" (the cloud centric one introduced in October 1017)
*I was only running LR Classic CC in my previous computer*

2) on the old computer all the images you have are represented in LR Classic and thus the physical image files were on the old computer or an external hard drive (EHD)
*You are correct- however, throughout this process I realized that the photos uploaded to the Adobe Cloud and saved in my computer photos library were - in some cases - previews and not the originals. I assume this is because they were synced from my Iphone and I have my photo library set up to optimize photo storage (or they may be another reason - not sure).  *

3) After getting the new computer, after installing LR you created a new catalog and re-imported your images. I'm not clear why you had to re-export them from Apple Photos as they should have been available on the old computer and you could have just copied the over, so some further explanation here would be useful. However, if you did indeed start fresh with a new Lighroom Catalog (you used the term Album which is a CC version term, not a Classic version term) and turned on Sync, it explains why all the images on the cloud went away (assuming you told LR that it was OK to sync the cloud witb the new catalog when the warning message came up)

*The only photos available in my old computer are Iphotos from 2018 and some 2017 because I did not have storage space. I also had my Nikon photos. 

 I had several reasons to start fresh:
a) I wanted to make sure that all the photos in my Lightroom Classic library and uploaded to the Adobe Cloud were  original photos and not previews.
b) I previously only had in my Lightroom Classic library photos for two years because I did not have enough storage space in my laptop and never got around setting up my library with older photos in an external drive (my new laptop has 2TB storage so I have plenty of space)
c) I erased everything from the Adobe Cloud by mistake. *

4) I don't know about the attempt to use an alias pointed at the old "Apple Photos" image library or why that would put all your images in 2019 but there should have been no need to do that.
*As I read through different ways to import your entire Photos library into Lightroom I read that while Lightroom will not allow you to import from the file "Photos Library" for obvious reasons, if you make an alias of that file you actually see the photo folders in the import prompt.  Not sure if you have ever tried this, but it works perfectly  - the only issue is that - in my case - after doing the import the photos were not organized correctly by date. As I mentioned before, most photos were imported into the 2019 folder. *

5) An Export if originals from Apple Photos to your hard drive should have worked, but again, if you were able to get your Apple Photos folders from the old computer to the new one, it is unclear why you could not also get the image files that LR was pointing to over to the new computer as well.
*Already explained re old computer. *

So, If you still have access to your old computer. Forget everything you did so far. Instead, copy the folder containing the LR catalog (this is a file ending in ".lrcat" from the old computer to the new one (ignore those that are in Time Machine or in a "backup" folder). The catalog is usually in "Pictures -> Lightroom". Also copy all the images that LR pointed to from the old computer to the new computer. These are the folders you see in the LR "Folders" panel in LR on the old computer. In the folders Panel in LR, Right click (or <ctrl>+click) on a high level folder and select "Show Parent" if you want to see the next higher level folder - or just rest the mouse pointer on a folder name and it will show you the full path. 

Once these items are copied to the new computer, double click on the catalog file you copied over (the one ending in ".lrcat". If the new version of LR on the new computer is a newer full release number than on the old computer, LR may ask if it is OK to upgrade the catalog to the new version. Let it do so.

At this point , come back here and provide a status. Everythng may be fine, or you may need to re-link your image folders. In addition, if your prior attempts did wind up removing all the images from the Adobe Cloud, you will again get the pop up asking if you want to sync this catalog with the cloud in place of the other one (the one with no or incorrectly dated images). Tell it yes. Depending on how many images it may take several days or weeks to re upload all the images.

*When I started this whole process, I did begin by copying the folder containing the LR catalog from the old computer to the new one. However,  for some reason that I don't recall, I erased all my photos from the cloud  by mistake. At that point I thought to myself that I might as well start out with a new Lightroom catalog  and start fresh since my old library only had a year and half of photographs and I was not sure that I had all the originals in my files. 

So bottom line - today my intent is to have my entire Apple Photos library (41K photos) imported into a new Lightroom catalog and for those photos to be correctly organized by year/month/day. At this point, for all the reasons I mentioned in my original threat, I have had no luck with my several import attempts. Makes sense. I am sure there most be a way to get this done correctly without major problems and maybe I am missing a simple step. 

I do hope this makes more sense.  I very much appreciate your time and do hope you can help me. 

Anamar*


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## Califdan (Mar 6, 2019)

Fair enough.   Prior to following these steps, wait a bit to see if a more Mac or Apple Photos person contradicts what I am suggesting (I am not an Apple user so my specific knowledge is limited).   Also, all of the info below is using LR Classic.

1)  if you are sure everything in the cloud has been deleted ( you may want to verify by using the Web LR CC page or the LR CC (not Classic) desktop App) we will ignore the cloud for now.

2)  If you are also at the point where you really do want to start over with the images in Apple Photos, that is fine and seems to make sense if  

    a)  Apple Photos has all the images you care about,  

    b) those images are not present on either computer outside of Apple Photos (i.e. you can not see them in regular folders using Finder,  

    c) you do not already have  loads of Keywords in LR  or have done other work in LR that you don't want to lose.

3)  Go to the folder where your LR catalog(s) is/are (usually  Pictures -> Lightroom) ) and  move them all to some out of the way folder.  Perhaps a new folder on the desktop called (LR Catalog Hold).  

4)  Using Apple Photos,  Export all the images.   I  do not own a Mac so am not aware of what options you have for such an export.  I'm pretty sure it will let you decide if you want to export Originals or edited images.  If you choose Originals you get the image files as they were when first brought into Photos (original file type but any edits will be gone).  If you choose "edited" you  will get JPG's that have the edits included but not the history of how those edits got there.   I also don't know if Photos gives you the option to organize the  exported images into year/month/day oriented folders (which you said you desire) but if it does you may want to have it do so (again depending on how closely their options matches what you desire)

5)  Launch LR.  It will complain that it can't find the catalog  (you moved it in step  3) and will ask if you want to locate a catalog to open or to create a new one.  Choose to create a new one. 

6)  Turn off  or pause syncing with the cloud (we'll come back to that later)

7)  Go to the Import dialog  and in the left panel group navigate to the folders the Apple Photos created for you in step 4.  If the images are already organized into folders as you want them to be, use the "Add" option.  Otherwise use either the Move or Copy option and have LR  create the date oriented folder structure you wish.   You may want to try this by only selecting a few dozen images to import just to assure it is working correctly, then if it is, do the rest.  Unless Apple Photos is really  poorly written the images should have the original capture date/time  data present which LR will be able to use to place the images in year/month/day folders.

8)  If you want to have Smart Previews copied up to the Adobe Cloud, then create one or more collections in LR Classic,  set those collections to sync with the cloud, and drag your images to those collections.  You can do this with one or many collections as you see fit.   Then go back and turn on or un-pause the sync operation.  Smart previews will start to migrate to the cloud which can take quite a while.  Many people have complained about images getting stuck so I would suggest doing this a bit at a time.  Maybe drag one year worth of images to the synced collection and then wait for syncing to be done, then repeat for the next year, etc.   However, I'll say it again,  what goes to the cloud are not your full image files, but rather are smart previews.  As, such I do not consider this as a  valid mechanism to fulfill the purpose of having cloud backups of images.

If someone else wants to jump into this thread feel free to do so.

Dan


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## Anamar (Mar 7, 2019)

Dan, 

Thanks so much! The process you describe is exactly the one I followed with no luck :(. 

If anyone using Apple has had this issue please do let me know how you fixed it. 

Thanks so much! 

Ana


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## Califdan (Mar 8, 2019)

Sorry it didn't help.  I will have to defer to someone with first hand experience with Apple Photos migration to LR Classic.


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