So happy to hear it helped! Cheers to a happy Lightroom experience!

​ @chrissydonadi

Your computer’s Operating System puts EVERYTHING into folders. Like it or not you do use folders - even if you try to ignore them. Without its folder system your computer would not work at all. At a minimum all your photographs should be in a folder called “Photographs”, or similar, to keep them separate from other non-photography related files not managed by Lightroom Classic. Lightroom needs a folder to import your photographs from (even if you always use the same folder). It also needs all photographs to be in a folder somewhere (because it doesn’t store photographs) as you say it has a database the photographs are all external to that database in one or more (operating system maintained) folders. Once you’ve accepted that, like it or not you do use folders, this video has some suggestions as to how you could use sub-folders to avoid having one huge bucket. In other words make folders help you .. however you decide to subdivide your images. Taken a step further - you can’t completely ignore folders but you could ignore Collections completely. I’m not saying you shouldn’t use collections, key words etc I agree that’d be a mistake. I’m pointing out that folders are The Most Fundamental file organisational element on any computer. It’s misleading ti say “never use folders” the reality is that you (and everyone reading this) do use folders. .. Be aware that there are things you can’t do in collections. For example go through any collection and flag as “rejected” the out of focus, accidental shots of the ground, older lower resolution images now redundant because you’ve a much better one, etc .. Lightroom allows you to delete from both the catalogue and disk all “ rejected” photographs that are a waste of time and space. But, not if you’re in a collection. You need to go to the original folder - only then will Lightroom delete them. It’s probably helpful to regard folders as a permanent, high level, organisation and collections as a more dynamic (sometimes long-term sometimes short-term) alternative organisation.

@@peterjohnson1739 You missed my point completely. LRc does the file management for you. How it does it, and if that mimics the OS is immaterial.

@@julesselmes I’m sorry but you are missing the point entirely. You said, “Never use folders!”. The word “never”, is too strong. It is not possible to “never” use folders. Lightroom forces you to use folders for two things: (1) when you import photographs - somewhere physical for them to be stored. (2) When you want to delete photographs that are rejects for whatever reason (poor, duplicates, etc). Note: when you delete from a Collection all you are doing is breaking the link in LrC’s catalogue the physical file remains in the folder where LrC can still find it. LrC does not back-up your photos. To back-up your photos (and LrC’s catalogue) you need to know where they are (the folders) and copy them to a different hard-drive or SSD. For organising, sorting, etc, Collections are without doubt a better approach than using folders. However, you can’t say “never” use folders when you do use them as everyone must.

Ah I see the misunderstanding. I never use the Folders in Library Mode. I always use Collections. The video was about the "Folders" and "Collection" panes and methods of organising pictures inside LRc. Yes, when I import I obviously choose where the files are saved but I never go looking in those folders for the files, I use Collections, which I also dictate when I'm importing files. You can delete an original file when in a Collection, you just need to choose the delete from disk option (or not if you just want to remove it from a Collection.) For backup, I get my drive that I have put all the imported files on, backed up using software that knows what's new and adds that to backup drives. Again I don't need to worry about which folder a job is in, it's all done on mass, automatically. @@peterjohnson1739

Never use dots in a foldername or in a filename (other than fileextensions