The “Photos” folder is the folder that Darkroom uses to store data, like catalogs, orders and packages. By default, the “Photos” folder is set to C:Program Files\ExpressDigital\Darkroom Pro\Photos (if you have Professional edition). The location of this Photos folder can be easily changed to store data in another drive or another folder under the network options in the setup tab. This can be useful for storing your data in a place where there is more storage. However, you may run into the situation where you would like to consolidate several Photos folders located in different locations on the computer.
NOTE: For safety, you should backup your existing data before following this procedure.
1. Locate your “Photos” folders. The network options in the setup tab will indicate which folder is the Current “Photos” folder. Another method of finding your Current “Photos” folder is by going to My Computer and opening up the X: Drive. The X: Drive is a temporary virtual drive that is a shortcut to the location you have setin the network options in the setup tab. The X: drive will only be present when you are running the Darkroom software, By default, the “Photos”folder is set to C:Program Files\ExpressDigital\Darkroom Pro\Photos.
2. Using Windows Explorer (accessed by opening My Computer), browse to your “Photos” folder. We will refer to this as the “Current Photos folder”. a. You will notice that there are folders with names that start with a date in the format YEARmonthDATE, i.e. 20020415, 20060116. In this particular example, the folder name 20060116 stands for the week of January 16, 2006. All catalogs created during that week are stored in that folder. Weeks begin on Monday and end on Sunday.
3. Open another Windows Explorer window and browse to your other “Photos” folder. We will refer to this folder as the “Old Photos folder”. Again, you will see dated folders.
4. Rename each dated folder by appending a letter or text string at the end. For example, if the folder was originally named 20060116, rename it to something like 20060116a. This helps later identify which location the folders originally came from and also prevents replacing any folders already in the current photos folders that had the same name.
5. To consolidate the two folders, copy and paste the dated folders from all your “Photos” folders into the Current “Photos” folder. **Note: If Windows prompts you to overwrite a dated folder, click on Cancel. This is because your Current “Photos” folder already has a dated folder with the same name. Go back to the “Old Photos folder” and rename that dated folder, and copy-paste it again.
6. Now open the current photos folder and locate the file called events.idx. right click on events.idx and choose rename from the menu.
7. Rename events .idx to events.bak
8. Now that you have renamed the events.idx file, the last step is to open the Darkroom software to the Photo Library page, click on the top catalog called Photo Library, and press Ctrl+R on your keyboard. This will rebuild the catalog index which will recreate the catalog tree in the software. Make sure all of your catalogs are now listed in the tree, and you are done. **Note: Please do not press Ctrl+R unless absolutely necessary. This feature is not intended for casual use.APPLIES TO:Darkroom AE/Pro/Core Keywords: photos folder consolidate combine merge catalogs data