Add Parent Folder in Lightroom

There is a small and little used command in Lightroom’s Folders panel that can make your life simpler in the long run.

It is called Add Parent Folder and what it does is literally add the parent folder to the Folders panel. Why is this helpful? Let me illustrate. Let’s say you have a folder structure by year like this:

Which is fine, but now you need to move all those folders to a new drive because you are running out of room. In this setup you would need to move one year at a time because Lightroom won’t let you select multiple folders for a move operation. However, if the parent folder of all those year folders was added to the Folders panel you could just select the parent folder and move it to the new drive, which would bring along all the subfolders and their contents.

To add that folder, just right-click (ctrl-click on Mac) and choose Add Parent Folder from the contextual menu.

This results in that parent folder appearing in the Folders panel.

This not only makes it easier to move folders but also gives you one more collapsible level of structure in your Folders panel.