Reorganizing Photos that are already in Lightroom into new folders

[Eli Burakian]

I almost always organize my photos by date now, using collections and keywords to find the images that I want.  I use the format year/month/day.

Anyways, I used to organized them by day only or by location.  I want to reimport my photos with all collections and editing data staying the same but move everything into the date format.  Do I have to manually create folders and move these one by one, or is there a way to reorganize the folders as if I were importing these? I really do not want to go through folder by folder, as I'd rather click on images in a bunch of folders, and have them moved into the folders by date.

When I select images that are already in my database, and try to import them into another folder in the same database, they are greyed out no matter what I choose (Move, Copy, Add...)

Any help would be much appreciated.

[meyerweb]

I was going to say that all you had to do was un-check the "don't import suspected duplicates" option, but that only worked in some folders, not all. So I did a little experimenting, and it appears that if any image in the folder has adjustments applied you can't re-import the folder. So unless someone else has a better idea, it looks like you'll have to move them manually.

[Eli Burakian]

Thanks for checking and experimenting. As every folder has images that have been worked on, I think I'll have the same problems.

Anybody? Any other ideas? I wonder if I save metadata to file, whether that will make a difference.

Ugh, there's so much info on importing and organizing, but nothing on re-organizing.

[Costas]

Just did a little test to explore this, but it depends on whether you can make a smart collection to gather your images to together

So create your new folder by date "year/month/day"
Create a smart collection to gather together the images that belong in that folder

Then "Cntrl A" to select all those in the smart collection and move to the new folder; takes .xmp files and virtual copies as well.

Obviously make a backup of your hard drive before starting.

Edit: corrected following a bit more experimenting 

[john beardsworth]

Ugh, there's so much info on importing and organizing, but nothing on re-organizing.

Because you're better off leaving the past archive as it is, and putting the re-organisation time to better use - applying more keywords, adding images to collections, and adding other metadata.

Leave the past alone, just make sure that it is properly backed up, and import new images into a standard date-based format. You don't need to categorise your pictures with folders - that's what metadata is for.

John

[indusphoto]

There are ways to do this. Which of these are you trying to change

the name, base location, the hierarchy

You can change any or all, I just want to know to give you better suggestion. Also are you Windows or Mac?

[madmanchan]

I agree completely with John.  I recommend using the metadata in Lr for organization (because you can then organize in many different ways, much more quickly), rather than folders (which only allows you to organize 1 way).  For example, if you want to view images by date you can just use Lr's filter bar to view images by year, month, etc.  Or set up Smart Collections to view by date in a way that makes sense to you.  For example, I have Smart Collections set up to view images I've taken in the past week, past month, and past 2 years.  The images themselves are actually strewn across multiple folders, multiple drives, etc., but it doesn't matter.

[jjj]

I almost always organize my photos by date now, using collections and keywords to find the images that I want.  I use the format year/month/day.

Anyways, I used to organized them by day only or by location.  I want to reimport my photos with all collections and editing data staying the same but move everything into the date format.  Do I have to manually create folders and move these one by one, or is there a way to reorganize the folders as if I were importing these?

This is relatively easy to do.
Firstly make sure you save image edits to xmp, so data is with the image and not just in the LR catalogue.
Then if you use dumb collections make sure you can restore them.
Once that is done, remove images from catalogue and import them back in by date and restore your collections. 

The fine details -
1 - To save to xmp if not already done so automatically, select all images and Ctl/Cmd+S. Better still make sure 'save to xmp' is turned on in Preferences/General/Catalogue Settings/MetaData and check 'save to xmp' - that way if a catalogue goes squiffy, then you don't lose any edits since previous back up and you can work in parallel with your images in Bridge no problem.

2 - Preserving dumb collections, simply select all images in each collection and give it a keyword that is name of collection [+prefix collection], so 'collection dogs', 'collection cats' 'collection birds'. So all you have to do to recreate collection is search for the keyword 'collection' and use the individual keywords to then refill your collections.

3 - When importing tell LR to 'Move' images and also tell it what date folder to place it into and do not apply any presets.
It may be easier to create the uber date folders, Year and Month outside of LR and if you know the rough dates you can place directly images into them when importing. Moving folders whilst in LR is painful as you can only do one at a time, so anything that reduces the folder shuffling is a good thing.
Alternatively, import all by date en masse [with minimal previews set], then remove them all from LR again and quickly and easily move the day folders into the correct Year/month folder in your file browser [explorer/finder etc] and then get LR to sync the top folder or reimport from top year folder.

I use the year/month/day/description folder structure and may have several folders per individual date as it can be easier to look through several smaller folders than one massive folder with a variety of completely different image subjects in it.

This means I can quickly scan through my folders and find images in any OS and using any programme.

[jjj]

Because you're better off leaving the past archive as it is, and putting the re-organisation time to better use - applying more keywords, adding images to collections, and adding other metadata.
Leave the past alone, just make sure that it is properly backed up, and import new images into a standard date-based format. You don't need to categorise your pictures with folders - that's what metadata is for.
John

I agree completely with John.  I recommend using the metadata in Lr for organization (because you can then organize in many different ways, much more quickly), rather than folders (which only allows you to organize 1 way).  For example, if you want to view images by date you can just use Lr's filter bar to view images by year, month, etc.  Or set up Smart Collections to view by date in a way that makes sense to you.  For example, I have Smart Collections set up to view images I've taken in the past week, past month, and past 2 years.  The images themselves are actually strewn across multiple folders, multiple drives, etc., but it doesn't matter.

Eric and John - I think it does matter, categorising your images with folders is still a very good thing to do [and quite easy to do on past work as described above].
Why are date description folders worth doing? Quite simply because good and thorough keywording so you can easily find things that aren't in neat date/description folders is actually a lot of hard work and extremely time consuming - which is never mentioned by those who say not to bother with tidy folder structures such as date/description. I can bring my images into LR by date, sort them into date description folders in a few minutes. Adding keywords will then take me hours. I'm not anti keywords at all, they are a brilliant tool, but not fast to do well. Plus sometimes your ability to remember the necessary specific keywords lets you down, but rummaging through labelled folders can jog the memory - and if you file by date, it also tends to help you remember when things happened.
Then there are other issues, you may not be accessing my images via LR. You may simply want to quickly browse using the system file browser and not bother opening LR. You may want to open images using the OS 'file open' dialogue such as if you add an image to LL post using your browser or to an email. You may be using Bridge or MiniBridge with other parts of the Creative Suite which LR doesn't exactly dovetail with quite so well and if you've gone down the metadata organising route, you may then struggle to find things.

I do however highly recommend keywords, but in addition to a robust filing system that makes sense to you. For example - If you are a wedding photographer, organising weddings by a simple year/couples names may be a better system than a more specific date/description and having only wedding/engagement work in the folder for each year.

LR's 9 word limitation on keyword sets is the major stumbling block to fast and efficient keywording. If this limitation was removed it would completely transform keywording speed.
[I do know that this is quite difficult to do, due to how LR was originally set up, but it really, really needs to be altered]

Oh and backing up work is much easier if in coherent folders as opposed to being scattered across several drives willy nilly.

[Rusty]

What every you decide upon, ensure that all folders are sub folders to one master folder i.e. Lightroom>year>month etc.

[jjj]

What every you decide upon, ensure that all folders are sub folders to one master folder i.e. Lightroom>year>month etc.

Not necessary or even practical. Unless someone has started selling 20TB hard drives! 2.5" of course! 
LR can support your images/folder on a multitude of hard drives.