LR help needed

[Momof3]

 

I have recently moved all my images to an external hard drive to have my MAC cleaned out. I'm trying to now work on my last few sessions and when I go into LR, its showing "File Not Found" and the catalog date is no longer bright white as it is when I import from my SD card directly normally.
 
My question is: How can i get my images back to being able to edit them via LR? (I can see my images in LR via catalog in library, but)
 
I appreciate any help and I'm just crying over here :-(Help

[Christina Keddie]

OK, repeat after me until it sticks: there are no photos "in" LR.   All that the LR catalog contains is the sequence of edits you've done on the photos, and it links back to the images as they're saved on your hard drive.

Once you moved the files from one drive to another, you broke that link.  That's why all the files say LR can't find them -- because you moved the files without telling LR where you moved them to.

Right-click on the folder in the folder tree in your LR Library module (which should now have a question mark on it), and choose "Find missing folder," then navigate to the external hard drive and the folder on it where these files can now be found.

And the next time you want to move files or folders anywhere, MOVE THEM WITHIN LR.  Go into your Library module and drag and drop folders to the appropriate drives there.

[Christina Keddie]

@Momof3, did you get this all worked out?