# Metadata for this photo has been changed in LR. Save changes to disk?



## aguden (Apr 23, 2015)

I updated to LR6 yesterday and all went as expected with no problems.  I made a change to the standard preview size from the default to what I thought was Auto (1920 px) and then I went to change my import preset from 1:1 to standard.  For some reason LR got hung and I had to use the task manager to abort it.  I started LR6 again and immediately exited savine the LR Catalog with all checks.

When I restarted all images show a small icon in the upper right corner of the thumbnails in the filmstrip.  If I click on it I get a pop up box that states "THe metadata for this photo has been changed in Lightroom. Save the changes to disk?"  If I say yes the icon disappears.

But with about 60,000 images, I can't do them one by one.  I can right click on an image and select Metadata->Save Metadata to file and the icon also disappears. I could do this for all but I'd like to understand what's up!


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## Jim Wilde (Apr 23, 2015)

That's a fairly standard situation. Lightroom will indicate when the metadata for an image has been changed but hasn't been saved to disk.....it does this via the icon on the thumbnails, and also in the Metadata panel for a specific image. Any metadata change will cause this. 

What to do about it depends largely on what you do with respect to the option of writing metadata to XMP (Catalog Settings).....lots of users like to write metadata to XMP routinely, either via that automatic setting, or manually via the Ctrl-S command. If they do this, that icon should either not appear or disappear as the system "catches up" with a large metadata changed. Others, OTOH, such as me, don't write metadata to XMP, so I practically every image in my catalog shows that icon....but fortunately I can turn off the display in the View Options menu, which is what I do.


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