I got this question from readers twice in i 24-hour interval last calendar week, and so I thought a blog post was in order.

It's the ultimate in Fall/Bound cleaning — substantially you volition build a new closet, put copies of everything in it ( nicely organized), and then throw everything away from the old one.  This may non be a price-effective way to reorganize your clothes, but it works for your photos!

This particular method volition starting time you over with a new blank Lightroom catalog, and will organize all your photos into shoot (date) folders within twelvemonth folders within a principal binder.   Yous can cull to organize them differently, only my mode allows you to automate the reorganization process.

This process is efficient, but it does have costs: you will lose any collections, flags, and virtual copies yous have created in Lightroom.  You will also lose your Develop step-by-pace history (not your Develop edits or the power to undo your work, just the step-by-step record of it shown in the History panel.) If you lot take question marks all over files and folders, and your photo organization organisation is a mess, this may be for you lot.  On the other hand, if you don't have too many question marks to resolve and your photo organisation can be hands cleaned upward by dragging and dropping using Lightroom'south folders panel, I wouldn't recommend this more desperate method.

If working with files and folders makes yous uncomfortable, this procedure also may not be for y'all.  Read through all the instructions to make sure you are comfortable with the whole process before starting.  (If you like the idea of this, but doing information technology makes you nervous, I am available for private sessions, either in-person or over the web.)

If you lot want to first over with a new catalog but don't demand drastic rearranging of your images, encounter the note at the cease of this mail service for which steps to follow.

Here goes:

1. Save whatever Lightroom work you have done to photos (keywords, stars, color labels and other metadata, Develop work) out to the folders where your photos live:

In the Library module, click on All Photographs in the Catalog Panel (top left), make certain yous are in Filigree view (M), select all your photos (Ctl/Cmd-A), and get to Photograph>Save Metadata to File, or do a Ctl/Cmd-S to practise the aforementioned.  By doing this, your work will yet be available when you re-import the photos.  (You lot may see little .XMP files in the folders with your photos — merely ignore them.) Note that this will not relieve work for missing files – you must locate these before performing this step, or accept losing your work on these. You can see how many files you accept missing by going to Library>Find All Missing Photos. Click here for more on missing files.

ii. Brand sure you sympathize where your current Lightroom catalog is, as you lot are going to delete it later:

Go to Edit (Lightroom on a Mac)>Itemize Settings.  The general tab shows you where the itemize folder is – make a note of this.

3. Make up one's mind where your photos and your Lightroom catalog are going to live — on an external hard drive?  In your Pictures binder on your internal difficult drive?

I adopt to keep my photos and my Lightroom catalog folder together in one master folder.  I will assume for the rest of the article that yous will do this, only y'all can of course put your catalog and photos in separate places, every bit long as you make a conscious selection.   (Note that while paradigm files tin be stored on a network drive, Lightroom catalogs cannot.)

Using Mac Finder or Windows Explorer/My Computer, go to the location you have called and create a new folder.  Call it something like "My Lightroom Photo Library".  Open up this folder and create a new folder inside it called "My Photos".

4. Create a new Lightroom catalog:

In Lightroom, get to File>New Catalog.  For the location, specify the My Lightroom Photo Library folder you created above (non the My Photos folder).  For File Proper noun, phone call it "My Lightroom Catalog".  Click Save (or whatever the choice is on the Mac).  Lightroom volition relaunch with this new blank catalog.  (Your old one hasn't been deleted, Lightroom just isn't using it at this indicate.)

Go to Edit (Lightroom on a Mac)>Preferences>General, and under Default Itemize, When Starting Up Utilise This Itemize, click on the dropdown and choose the itemize that you just created.

Yet under Preferences, click on the Presets tab.  If the box is checked next to "Store Presets with Catalog", then in order to have all the presets and templates that you created, yous will need to copy your Lightroom Settings folder from the sometime catalog folder to the new one.  (If the box isn't checked or you don't care well-nigh preserving any presets or templates, skip this stride.)   Click on the Testify button to go to your new Lightroom catalog binder.  Open it, and delete the Lightroom Settings folder.   Open another Mac Finder or Windows Explorer window, and get to your old Lightroom itemize folder (from step 2).  Open it and Ctl/Cmd-drag the Lightroom Settings binder into the new catalog folder in the outset window.   Now close these windows, and close and restart Lightroom.

5. Have Lightroom's Import Procedure create a copy of all your photos and reorganize them:

You are going to import photos from everywhere you lot currently have them, have Lightroom create copies and organize them correctly, and and then when this is all washed and you have verified that all is well, you will delete the original versions.

In the Lightroom import dialog, on the left, choose a source for existing photos (If there are photos in your Pictures folder, do this 1 first, and then return and do other locations where you lot accept photos.)    Exist sure to bank check Import Photos from Subfolders at the summit of the Source panel.  Choose Copy, and on the right, down in the Destination panel, navigate to and click on your new My Photos folder inside your My Lightroom Photograph Library folder, so that My Photos is highlighted.  At the peak of the Destination panel choose "organize by date", and from the drop down below this, choose  yyyy/mm-dd or yyyy/yyyy-mm-dd.  (The "/" subsequently the year is important!)    This will put all of your images for each day's shooting into separate subfolders, inside twelvemonth folders. In the tiptop correct of the Import Dialog in the File Handling panel, exist certain to cheque "Don't Import Suspected Duplicates".

Echo with every dissimilar source, taking notes on where these photos are coming from.  Because you take "Don't Import Suspected Duplicates" checked, Lightroom volition but put a copy of the photos in your new binder if it hasn't already.

6. Reveal your folder construction.

The Folders panel in the Library module now most likely just has a list of date folders within yr folders.  Right-click (or Cmd-click) on i of the year folders and choose Add Parent Folder.  This volition reveal your My Photos folder.  Right-click (or Cmd-click) on My Photos, and Add Parent Folder to reveal My Lightroom Photo Library.  Right-click on this, Add Parent Folder to reveal wherever this lives — now you can be articulate where all your photos are.

vii.  Rename all your appointment folders.

This isn't fun if you take a lot, but it is a one-fourth dimension investment — don't skip it!  Click on each appointment folder to see what's in it, then right-click on the folder name, choose Rename, and add a description of the shoot.

viii. Work with your itemize for a while.

If all went well and nothing is missing, you are ready for the terminal ii steps:

9.  Delete the original photos.

Using Windows Explorer/My Estimator or Mac Finder, get dorsum to each photo source that you noted earlier and delete your original photos.  Don't delete anything from your new My Lightroom Photo Library binder!

x. Delete the old Lightroom Catalog.

Go dorsum to the location noted in footstep 2 and delete the itemize folder (well-nigh likely named Lightroom.)

11.Sit back and admire how organized your photograph library is!!

Once you take enjoyed this for a chip, it is time to showtime keywording your photos!

What if your photos are organized reasonably well, but you lot just want to start over with a new Lightroom catalog?  In this case, you will practise 2, iii, 4, 5,  8 and ten.  In stride five, the Import, choose Add together rather than Re-create, and then that your photos are just added to the catalog, and stay where they currently are on your hard drive.

Give thanks you to Mike Nelson Pedde for his valuable feedback on this article.

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