Messy Catalog moving images

Permanently deleted user

• February 16, 2022 11:13

I've got a couple of old catalogs in my archive. I don't know what I was thinking when I created ut they are a complete mess. I would like to clean them up and put the images into a new catalog.

How do I move the images into a new strucutre managed by a catalog?

I'd like to consolidate so that I have only a single catalog and I can delete the old catalog.

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  BeO

  • February 16, 2022 22:03

  

  Hard to say because we don't know the mess in your old catalog, and also not the target structure. It will be easier if you don't want to merge the images into your target folders which already have images. I hope you are or will be using a catalog with references to your images, not the images "In catalog".

  I think there are a couple ways, I suggest to test them before you do it on your real catalogs. And make backups as needed.

  Option 1

  1. In your source (old messy) catalog, create new folders in your target folder system, using the library tool.

  2. Move the images from their current location to the new target folders (always use the library tool, never Windows Explorer).

  3. Close the messy catalog and open your single target catalog, menu File>Import catalog (the messy one).

  4. Check the target catalog, then you should be able to delete the messy one.

   

  Option 2

  1. In the messy catalog, export selected images as originals, include Adjustments, choose the target folder in your new structure as the export location

  2. In your target catalog, import these images, include Adjustments

  As I write this, it seems option 2 might be the better one.

   

  Test it before you do, hope I didn't tell you nonsense.

   

   

   

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  BeO

  • February 16, 2022 22:12
  • Edited

  

  For option 2, if you have a real mess, e.g. you need to select images from different places in your messy catalog which should go into the same place in your target catalog, which means a lot back and forth in the messy catalog, you should remember which images you have already exported, e,g. by tagging them with a keyword, so you can use a filter.

  EDIT: ... so that you don't trade one mess with another :-)

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  Permanently deleted user

  • February 17, 2022 16:19

  Thanks BeO. I think option 2 sounds the easiest...
  
  There's a few problems with these catalogs. I was in a rush and it looks like I have somehow nested a cataog inside a catalog? and there's folders which have the same names. For example there's a folder called World Champs 2019 and inside it is another folder called World Champs 2019 (which contains the catalog file). There's a 2nd catalog file in this folder 2 but none of the images it references are showing up.
  
  These catalogs, folders & images sit in my archive on my NAS. There's also some SD cards dumps I want to go through and bring into the new structure so I can delete these images from my NAS.
  
  I was thinking I could set up 1 folder on my laptop: World Champs 2019 and store the catalog in here. Inside this World CHamps 2019 I would like to put in a folder structure on the topics of that event. It's a project based strucutre.

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  BeO

  • February 17, 2022 22:03

  

   it looks like I have somehow nested a cataog inside a catalog?

  Maybe when you import one catalog into another catalog, then this structure you see will be created.

  here's a 2nd catalog file in this folder 2 but none of the images it references are showing up. 

  If you have two .cocatalogdb files in the same folder this might be a problem because each catalog usually has its Cache and Adjustments subfolders in that folder, like so:

  

  I suggest you create a few test catalogs with test images and play around for a while to learn what is possible and to understand what might have happend when you see certain things in the catalog.

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