Relocate multiple images + show file paths for missing images
Not currently planned
What problem do you see this solving?
As it is, there's no way of relocating multiple missing image files unless they're contained in a specific folder or on a hard drive that can be relocated; if they aren't, the only way is to relocate them one at a time, which would be very time consuming if you have hundreds or thousands of missing images you need to relocate.
If Capture One would automatically look for images files missing from the same folder once you've relocated the first file, this would save a lot of time. And if Capture One would show file paths for missing images too, this would make relocation easier.
This is issue is further compounded by two things:
1) There's no way of seeing the file paths for missing images in Capture One, i.e. where Capture One expects these image files to be; currently the only way to see these file paths is to open the catalogue database in a third-party SQLite editor (if you know where to look, that is).
2) There's no way of seeing what files are missing/offline. That is, you can see if a specific file is missing, or if a specific folder or hard drive is missing, but there's no way to get an overview, e.g. a list, of missing image files (see this request).
(See also support request #181116 about Capture One crashing when relocating image files.)
When was the last time you were affected by this lack of functionality, or specific tool?
Today.
Are you using any workarounds or other solutions to achieve your goals in Capture One?
Last time I had this issue, I ended up editing my Capture One catalogue in an SQLite editor in order to save time, but it took a long time to figure out how to do so.
Are you happy to be contacted further about this suggestion or request?
Yes.
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Official comment
Hi everyone,
Thank you for the suggestion - this is not something we are currently working on.This does not mean this is a bad suggestion or that it will never be adressed, but in an effort of transparency we want you to know that we are not currently allocating resources to solving this issue.
We will revisit the status of this thread if and when it changes.
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+1 from me for the whole request.
This is issue is further compounded by the fact that there's no way of seeing the file paths for missing images in Capture One, i.e. where Capture One expects these image files to be
This is especially annoying because without opening the SQLite database (the .cocatalog file) one has no way to see the expected location of an offline image and it should not be rocket sience to implement e.g. to show the location as a property in the metadata tool (or somehow else).
The only exception is when the directory still exists and one uses the Show in library function, but this is not always the case particulary it seems that when restructuring the folders and moving images around (using the library tool) C1 sometimes is not correctly updating the location of all images in the catalog (yes I mean buggy behavior) which probably lead to the majority of my offline images in the past.
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Capture One crashed at least seven times yesterday when I was relocating images moved to a new hard drive. In the process I ended up with empty folders in the library; the images in these folders are in the catalogue, but in Capture One's Library tool the folders are empty. I can't figure out how this is possible.
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I've updated the request with a few more details.
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+1 for this request. I just had a 20k image catalogue lose it's reference because the drive letter of the external changed. The locate option did not work at all, loaded the file structure but showed all subfolders as empty. I had to manually change the drive letter in disk management to get my image references back. There definitely needs to be a better solution to this.
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+1 to this request, i came from lightroom, i WANT to like capture one but honestly this is rudimentary stuff. its really wasting my time, im a professional i need professional software
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+1. I'm really starting to like editing photos in Capture One, but the catalog/organizational functionality is objectively buggy and missing so many features compared to Lightroom.
For others facing this problem, I've personally found that using the "List" view (which I'm rarely using otherwise), makes it significantly easier to spot the photos with an "offline" status, since there is a dedicated column for this type of icon.
Strangely enough, you can actually sort by almost all other columns in this view (Aperture, Focal Length, etc.)... but you can't sort by the Status column! Simply enabling sorting of this column in list view would be a quick fix which solves a lot of this pain for users IMO.
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Being able to sort the status column would be an improvement.
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+1 for the sorting as a minimum improvement and maybe quick win.
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I would like to add my support for a feature like this, thank you.
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the way recordbox works with missing files would be HELPFUL to implement in capture one.
you can scan for missing files. this gives you a list of however many missing files.
you then select a file to search for. withthat file name you can do a search in a search app to locate that file
and generally, the folder of other missing files. when you know where the single file is and generally the whole folder of missing files, you locate the file in rekordbox.
at that point you get an option capture one needs.
something like: "do you want to rekordbox to attempt to locate the other misssig files?'
you then select: YES, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, YESS!!!
rekordbox then locates all the other missing files in that folder.
this usually finds all of them, unless your work is spread out over multiple folders.
the missing files list then refreshes to reveal only the remaining missing files.
you can again now note the first missing file name and search in an search app to locate the missing file.
again you can use rekordbox to restore/locate all files from the folder containing that missing file.
you can continue in this fashion until all files are located.
even at the worst, its MUCH faster than the individual locate option in capture one.
Im stunned you dont have a similar option, its pretty basic.
if professional djs had to locate single files at a time as in capture one... the entire dj community would crash and burn. that software also cost less than capture one...
rekordbox recognized we need more than a whole director locate and more than a single file locate in situations like live performance. rekordbox makes short work of restoring 1000's of missing files spread out over a hundred folders.
rekordbox figured this out like 10 years ago...
there should also be a folder like the catalogue trash folder that contains all missing files for easy deletion.
sorting in the view option would be a bare minimum feature addition needed.
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Automatically finding files within a system of storage options may be a little more prone to misidentification, depending on how people prefer to name original files, output files, individual backup files and so on. Get that wrong and huge confusion may result.
The automatic relocation function used by rekordbox, the dj application referred to above, works well; it also requires that you specify where, i.e. in what folders, the application should look for missing files, reducing the risk of misidentification.
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This absolutely kicked my arse on my last shoot, as things were getting flagged as "Offline Files" when they were blatantly in the same capture folder as the other 5000 images. I resorted to manually copying and pasting the "Missing" files as duplicates, which C1 gleefully picked up as present and allowed me to work on.
Good tip about manually editing the SQLite database, I'll keep that in mind when it next occurs!Also yes, please, for the love of all things holy, let us filter or sort the status column!!
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Coming from Apple's defunct Aperture, it's laughable that Capture One cannot do something like this that I used to take for granted in Aperture. Something that took perhaps a minute (or less) to do in Aperture now takes way longer in Capture One.
Come to think of it even something like Quark Xpress from the mid/late 90s would automatically 're-link' all the relevant missing images within a folder/sub folder – and yet C1 has (currently) no plans for implementing such a feature.
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you can relink a whole folder with one operation in capture one.
Yes, I know that – but I have a batch of images that were initially and incorrectly placed into another folder (which is not missing) so they needed to be in their own (newly created) folder.
Therefore I couldn't use the relocate folder option as the folder itself is not missing/offline.
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@... – Apple Aperture would identify a subset of files if you pointed it at the correct folder and reconnect them without having to do it file by file. It was far superior to the current Locate feature of Capture One.
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Do you realize, that you can drag/drop images from within Capture One in order to "fix" the folder structure? So, you could take some images in one folder and drag/drop them into another folder. Then, there's no need to "Locate" within Capture One because you did the reorganizing within Capture One.
From the posts I see here and on reddit, most of the time people get their file system out of whack with Capture One, it's because they went outside of Capture One and reorganized. If you just do the reorganization from within Capture One, you never create this problem in the first place. I know C1 isn't the world greatest file system organizer, but it can do the basics of moving images to different directories.
That's another problem. Not everyone lives entirely within Capture One. Personally, I also use the Affinity 'suite' (where all the apps work in the same way re. missing resources), amongst others, where the 'behaviour' is as described by others as well as myself. C1 is the only major app that I use that behaves in this manner – thus it is somewhat counter-intuitive to other software.
Admittedly I am a comparative newbie to C1 (only been a user for about 2-3 years) – but a highly experienced and heavy user of other creative apps. That said, thanks for the heads up re. drag and drop. So, if I was to do that, C1 will also create the necessary folders in the Finder and move the relevant image files into them (as that is my ultimate aim, because access to the actual image files are needed outside of C1 as well)?EDIT:
Actually, hang on a sec, if you are referring to C1 dragging & dropping into folders etc only WITHIN C1 itself then I already knew that and have used that functionality – but I do specifically need the image/folder structure sorted on the Desktop/Finder itself as access to the image files are needed beyond C1 by someone else (who doesn't use C1).
Are you saying that the method you described will correct that on the Desktop/Finder as well as within C1?1 -
@...:
Eddie made a statement that implied Capture couldn't relink a whole directory at once
Presumably a reference to this part:
something like Quark Xpress from the mid/late 90s would automatically 're-link' all the relevant missing images within a folder/sub folder
Though it doesn't say that the whole folder is missing, only that some of the images in the folder is missing.
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Hi everyone!
I would be very happy if offline file management and reconnection could be improved. Good examples for this could be Apple Aperture, DaVinci Resolve, Final Cut Pro 7, InDesign, LrC, AVID just to name a few. For me, only two features are missing:
- The ability to search for additional offline files in the same directory, including subfolders. (Dialogue Box: Would you like to search for additional offline files in the same path?)
- Listing offline files in combination with searching for a specific file.
I hope that these features will be available one day. :-)
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I have been using the trial for a few weeks and how now finally bought a license. Loving the software, but I'm shocked to see how terrible the "locate" function is.
Tonight my wife wanted access to the catalog on her machine, so she could start sorting photos for christmas gifts among other things. I thought it would be a good opportunity to try moving the catalog to our NAS. The photos have originally been placed locally on my PC but I figured "why not, I got more space on the NAS anyway".
It's been an absolute NIGHTMARE and I'm still not done 'locating' folders and files..
I can't simply say "Hey, everything that previously have been on I:\ should now be located at B:\".
Both drives have the same folder structure. Everything is identical except for the drive letter.
Something so easy should be childs play for an advanced photo management/editor in my opinion.
Like someone else mentioned, Davinci, Final Cut etc all do these things with ease, and that's something I'd expect from Capture One as well.While it might not be worked on right now, I'm very frustrated this is not even planned!
Please, please reconsider this..
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If you select each top level folder and "locate" it on the NAS that may be more effective and efficient. It will "locate" everything under each top level folder. I agree. Apple does it WAY better.
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That's what I thought too. Still after a good 15-20 minutes of C1 thinking about it, all photos are offline.
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It can take quite some time if there are LOTS of photos. NAS access typically isn't that speedy - especially compared to internal SSD storage. Let it go.
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No the problem is, when the loading bar disappears after 15-20 minutes. No images are found, all is still offline.
The only way I've been able to "locate" them properly is going one folder at a time.My NAS is internal SSD speed (not M2 speedy, but fast enough), so the speed is not anything I'm worried about in this case.
There are about 20K photos from 2016 and up to today.
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I've 'located' all the folders now. Photos are correctly connected to the original raw files.
But to my huge surprise it seems the ratings and edits I've done are gone as well!!I'm speechless!
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I'm having a similar frustration with C1 -- I just ran across about 300 images in the C1 catalog that show up with a question mark icon -- missing files.
So I mounted an old Aperture backup hard drive that has those missing files and dragged them into the C1 folder they're missing from.
But now apparently I have to Locate each file, one at a time, to have C1 recognize them. That's 300 repetitions of clicking and dialogs boxes and scrolling, over and over and over.
And I know that there are other holes in my C1 that I occasionally come across.
Surely there's a better way. Surely C1 will make a better way.
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You probably know this already, but just in case: if all images in a folder are missing from a catalogue, it's quicker to relocate the folder.
Another solution is to edit the catalogue in an SQLite editor. It took me a while to figure out how to do this, but it's possible and can save time if it isn't just a question of relocating a few folders. Unfortunately the topic that contains a description of how to do this isn't accessible anymore – perhaps someone from Capture One could make it accessible again?
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Thank you for the suggestions. Unfortunately, the missing images seem to be rather random. No idea why...
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If you want to have a go at editing the database, you can use the free DB Browser for SQLite. If you keep a copy of the database file ([name].cocatalogdb inside the catalogue package), you can always put the unedited file back if it doesn't work. I'm sure there are other users here with more experience with SQLite who'll be able to help.
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Thanks - that might be beyond my capabilities.
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