# Undo import



## m1dlg (Sep 9, 2014)

Hi, I have had a look at past posts and I've tried Google and failed to find an answer so far. I have just rebuilt my PC. Fresh install of Windows 7 64bit. I have loads of photos all unsorted on a number of drives and I figured LR was the way to go. I have a dedicated destination drive and several drives to import from that contain videos and (as I have just realized pictures that do not belong to me EG, other family members/work). 

Before I remembered the photos and videos that I didn't want to move and sort, I told LR to import and move all images from 1 drive and sort them and rename them on another. 200Gb later.... I realise it's taking too long, and I stop it. Before I switch it off how do I unimport and restore those images and videos to their respective original folders?? I have been looking on forums everywhere and couldn't find any real help, or advice and because I get stuck in a look on the Adobe website forcing me to repeatedly enter my DOB and refusing to correct my personal information, I have given up on that one.

Any ideas anyone?


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## Jim Wilde (Sep 9, 2014)

Hi, welcome to the forum.

What import option did you choose: Copy or Move? If the latter, which is what your post implies, then I'm afraid you're in trouble as "Move" in reality is "Copy then Delete the original", and that is on a per folder basis IIRC. So once copied into the new drive with new names and new folder structure the originals are deleted, and I don't think there's any going back from that except manually....which sounds like it's going to be pretty difficult if not impossible.

Backups? Do you have any to allow you to restore the originals and start over?


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## m1dlg (Sep 10, 2014)

Thanks jim, I moved everything. I'm going to move to move the whole photo collection to a root folder on the original drive to fix later. I am going to import the rest of the photos from other sources now, minus my error. However I cannot see anyway to only import photos and not videos. Am I missing something?


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## Jim Wilde (Sep 10, 2014)

There's a couple of things you could do. In the Import dialog there's a couple of sort options (on the Toolbar), one of which is Media Type. That will group all the videos together (at the top, I believe) which will make it easier to multi-select them (click on the first thumbnail, shift-click on the last), then deselect them for import (by unchecking any one of the selected videos).

Another way is to sort by file type in Explorer, select the files you want to import, then drag them into Lightroom's Grid in the Library module. That will initiate the Import process with just the dragged files selected for import.


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## erro (Sep 10, 2014)

What was your original problem? "It's taking too long"? Well, importing lots of photos and videos does take a while. But, is that a problem? If so, why?


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## m1dlg (Sep 10, 2014)

Erro, I thought I was clear on that. It was taking too long so I inspected the destination folder and found it had picked up video files it shouldn't have. It was at this point I stopped it from importing. The import was 10x the size I expected and took 10x the time I expected it to take and wasn't even finished. I want to incrementally fix and sort my photos and I thought Light room was the way, not by picking up a load of videos and other irrelevant items on the way, that incidentally are managed in another application.

Jim, thanks for the advice. I will be more careful and this will help me do that.


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