Lightroom help

I have a folder i just imported into Lightroom. It has like 3000+ photos.....all of the photos appear to be in no particular order but i'd like to group them by date. Is there any way I can do this without going through each one by one? What a headache.....it's my own stupid fault but i don't even want to get into that right now.... Maybe if i was a bit more calm the answer would come to me.....

There are several approaches to grouping your photos by date but if you haven't edited any of them yet my suggestion would be to use your Operating System (Finder or Windows Explorer) to sort the files into logical groups; presumably by Capture Date, then reimport the folders into Lightroom.

But from within Lightroom you can create Smart Collections that can cover specific time periods. For example you can create a Smart Collection based on the rule of Sorting all photos for the period 01-01-2009 to 01-31-2009. You can then decide to keep your Smart Collections or then drag the photos for each period into actual, physical folders on your hard drive.

Another approach would be to the Library Module and switch to Grid Mode. Then go to View > Sort and make sure Capture Time and Ascending are selected. This ensures your photos are sorted in the order they were taken. Then in the menu go to Photo > Stacking > Autostack by Capture Time then move the slider to the extreme right...this might not be useful but its worth a try.

Additionally you can use the Library Filter to sort photos by Capture date and time.

Instead of trying to explain I post a screen shot of 2 different options you can use to sort and organize.... hope it helps..

1.

You were a huge help....i guess i should admit now (which is why i was mad) that i imported them from my homeserver incorrectly and i thought they were going from their separate folders (which they were in) into separate folders in lightroom....but it was my mess up....it took me a good part of the day to get through between kids screaming etc. only to find out at the end that they are now lumped into one folder....


Anyhow, thank you so much for the time you took to explain it. Once i put the kids to bed i'll fix my mess.

I probably didn't do a good job of explaining in my first post. Probably the best approach would be as follows:

1. Go to the Catalogs Panel on the left side of the screen and click on All Photographs to select it.
2. Press the CTRL+L keystroke combination to enable the Library Filter.
3. In the Library Filter bar select Metadata.
4. In the drop down list that appears the column on the left should Titled "Date" and sorted by the dates your photos were created.
5. Now if you click on each date line, the photos for that date will show up in the Grid view.
6. Now simply select those photos and drag them into individual folders you can create in the Folders Panel.

This could get rather tedious so my suggestion to use your OS to sort your photos then reimport them into Lightroom still stands.

If the photos are already in folders I would select all the photos in your catalog (using the CTRL+A command) delete them from lightroom ( you need to be careful to make sure you're deleting from Lightroom and not from your hard drive), then reimport them, making sure I selected the correct import options.

Files > Import from Disk and select the topmost folder of the hierarchy where your photos are stored and press the "Import All Photos in Selected Folder" button.

When the Import dialog box opens, you should see each folder listed on the left side. In the File Handling drop-down box make sure the "Add photos to catalog without moving" option is selected. Click the import button and your photos should be imported with your folder structure intact.

forevercha wrote in post #8419503
You were a huge help....i guess i should admit now (which is why i was mad) that i imported them from my homeserver incorrectly and i thought they were going from their separate folders (which they were in) into separate folders in lightroom....but it was my mess up....it took me a good part of the day to get through between kids screaming etc. only to find out at the end that they are now lumped into one folder....


Anyhow, thank you so much for the time you took to explain it. Once i put the kids to bed i'll fix my mess.

Thank you so much....you have no idea how much you have helped me....i'm in the process of re-importing them now....seems just as fast to do it that way! Cheers!

Take a look at this video by Matt Koslowski. I personally set up my folder structure by date as that is how my brain works, but he makes a good argument as to why it is not necessary and presents an easy way to search and such by date, making the by date folder structure mute.

http://www.lightroomki​llertips.com …rganizing-photos-by-date/

It is pretty much the method show above, but a nice review nonetheless.