Importing Photos into Lightroom Classic

Before importing photos into Lightroom, it helps to organize your folders first. A simple, consistent structure makes it much easier to find images later. Many photographers use a master folder for each year, with subfolders for different shoots or events. Using two‑digit numbers for months keeps everything in date order.

My own system is based around master folders for different subjects. For example, I keep all wedding work inside a Weddings folder, organized by year, then by each wedding. My general photos live in a Pictures folder, with each folder named using the year, month, and a short description. For example: 26 02 Lightroom Import Demo. This format has worked reliably for decades and makes searching fast and predictable.

Don’t worry if your photos are already in Lightroom and you want to reorganize them. You can move and rename folders inside Lightroom, or you can reorganize them in File Explorer or Finder. If you make changes outside Lightroom, simply right‑click the affected folder and choose Synchronize Folder so Lightroom updates its records. If you reorganize inside Lightroom, no extra steps are needed.

In Lightroom Classic, go to File > Import Photos and Video…. This opens the Import dialog, where you choose the source of your images and decide how Lightroom should handle them.

The Import dialog is the standard way to bring new photos into Lightroom, and it gives you full control over how your files are copied, organized, and added to your catalog.

On the left side of the Import dialog, select the location where your photos currently are. This might be a memory card, an external drive, or a folder on your computer. Lightroom will display thumbnails of the images so you can choose which ones to import.

Once you’be selected the source, Lightroom will show you how many new photos it has found and give you options for copying, moving, or adding them to your catalog. We’ll walk through those choices in the next steps.

At the top of the Import window, pick one of:

• Copy as DNG – copy and convert to DNG.
• Copy – copy files to a new location, keep original format.
• Move – move files to a new location, remove from source.
• Add – leave files where they are, just add them to the catalog.

If you’re importing from a memory card, Copy is the safest choice. This leaves the original photos on the card until you’re certain they’be been copied successfully (and backed up!). Personally, I still copy files from the card to a folder on my computer using Windows File Explorer before importing. There’s no special advantage to doing it that way - it’s simply a habit I’be used for nearly three decades, and it has never let me down. I don't delete the photos from the memory card until I have backed up the photos and also the Lightroom catalog. The best, safest way to delete photos from a memory card is to format it in the camera.

My preference inside Lightroom is to choose Add, which leaves the files exactly where they are and simply adds them to the Lightroom catalog. If your photos are in raw format, this keeps them in their original raw form rather than converting them to DNG. I prefer this to Copy as DNG. In the past, when Lightroom introduced new features such as the excellent DeNoise, those features initially worked only with original raw files, not DNGs. Support for DNG usually arrives later, but you may not want to wait for that.

For more background on file types, see these related tutorials: Raw vs JPEG and Image Formats.

On the right panel, open Destination. Choose the parent folder where you want the images stored, then decide whether to organize them by date or into a single folder you created earlier.

When you select your destination folder, the default setting in the Destination panel is Organize: By Date.

If your photos are taken on different days, they will be organized into different folders, for each day. See the next step for an example.

On a 7 day trip, I took photos on each day. This example includes just one photo per day.

Personally, I prefer all photos from one shoot, to be in a single folder.

Even if you delete all the photos from Lightroom, the folders remain. Of course you can then delete them in a separate step or two (right click on the folder and select Delete), but I prefer to work more efficiently.

Click on the arrows on the right of the Organize drop-down to see three options;

• By original folders
• By date
• Into one folder

We've looked at By Date. Next we'll look at By original folders.

Select By original folders.

This creates a subfolder with the name of the original folder.

The folder and subfolder are highlighted in red.

The subfolder is the original folder name.

This time, select Into one folder.

It does what it says on the tin and puts your imported folders into only one folder. No subfolder, or multiple subfolder nonsense.

It does what it says on the tin and puts your imported folders into only one folder. No subfolder, or multiple subfolder nonsense.

When you’re happy with the source, handling method, destination, and options, click Import (Classic) or Add Photos (cloud). Lightroom will copy/move/add the files, build previews, and apply any presets, metadata, and keywords.

Other tutorials will look at creating and applying presets,

To view the actual folder you have just imported your photos into, right-click on any of the photos and select Go to Folder in Library.

You will see all the photos you just imported. From here you can develop, or export the photos.

Importing photos is quite straightforward, but the Destination options can cause confusion, especially the default By Date option, which creates a subfolder for each day photos are taken on. If you are importing photos from multiple days, such as a holiday, or multi day shoot, this option will create a number of unnecessary subfolders.

Here is an alternative workflow that is quick and simple.