Photo folder and scanning
Point the library at the folder that holds your photos — on this computer or a network share — and scan it to bring new files into the catalogue.
The Folder pane is about where the library's photos are and how they get into the catalogue.
Photo folder
The folder that holds the library's photos. Type a path and press Enter, or use the browse button. A mapped drive letter is stored as the network share it stands for, so the setting means the same thing to background services; the field then shows what was stored.
Scan and Index only
- Scan walks the photo folder, adds what is new to the catalogue and makes thumbnails.
- Index only does the same walk but stops at the catalogue, leaving thumbnails for later. It is much faster on a network share; make the thumbnails afterwards from Thumbnails & video.
Both are greyed out while a pass is already running. The pass's progress, with Stop, is at the foot of the pane.
When the catalogue belongs to another folder
- If the catalogue is still keyed to an older spelling of this folder, a note offers Move, which rewrites the stored paths onto the folder above. Nothing is rebuilt, and albums, tags, edits and the trash are untouched. It can be stopped and resumed with Resume.
- If the catalogue belongs to a different library altogether, the pane says so and offers Copy that path and Open it.
How photographs are filed
Shows how imports into this library are filed, and may offer Use this shape. See How imports are filed.