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Reconnecting Files in Photoshop Elements

Reconnecting files in Photoshop Elements can be a very confusing and frustrating task.  This guide shows you how to:
  1. Reconnect your files in the fastest way
  2. Get rid of the "right" duplicate files
  3. Figure out why they got disconnected in the first place
  4. Make sure you find all your lost files
How did they get disconnected in the first place?
This can happen for a variety of reasons:
  1. Deleting the file through Windows explorer or some other program other than Photoshop Elements
  2. Moving the file from one spot to another through Windows explorer or some other program other than Photoshop Elements
  3. Renaming the file through Windows explorer or some other program other than Photoshop Elements
  4. Reformatting your hard drive, but placing the files back into a Windows account that's named different than your original 
Situation #4: I once backed up all my files to and external hard drive, then reinstalled windows.  Upon reinstallation, I created separate Windows user accounts for my kids and my wife and I.  So now, instead of all my pictures being in the "Administrator"'s My Pictures folder, they were now in "Brian and Angela"'s My Pictures folder.  Since I did this backup and restore without using Photoshop Elements, virtually all my files became disconnected.

Step by Step to reconnecting your files:
  1. Work in small chunks.  Elements can only handle reconnecting a few hundred files at once.  Try to do more than that at a time, and it usually just hangs up.  Therefore, rule #1 is to work in chunks.  We need to first address photos we've edited.  To find these, select Find>All Version Sets.  Next, I suggest using the Find>Set Date Range option to select one month of pictures at a time.   
  2. Unstack your version sets.  Unfortunately you have to unstack each version set manually.  If you don't unstack the set before reconnecting, Elements only reconnects the picture on the top of the set.  The same is also true for stacks of photos.
  3. Once unstacked, select all photos in your view (Crtl+a or Edit>Select All), then click File>Reconnect Missing File.  Do NOT select "Reconnect All Missing Files".
  4. Elements will search for the missing files and reconnect them.  
    This can take a while.  If taking too long you can follow these substeps:
    1. Click the Browse button.
    2. In the window that pops up, click the column heading "Original File Location".  This sorts the files according to the original folder they were in.  
    3. In the right half of the window, navigate to the spot where the first file in the list should now be located.
    4. Click Find.
    5. This should allow Elements to quickly reconnect all files currently selected that can be found in the new folder.
    6. Repeat if the files you're connecting are now located in more than one spot
    7. If Elements pops up a window titled "The file already exists in the catalog" see the steps below
  5. Once all the files Elements CAN find are reconnected, you still may have some work to do.  It seems to stop working when it encounters a file it can't find - then it stops looking for the rest in the list.  For these files, use the steps above to verify if you can find the file or not.
    1. If the file is gone/deleted, you can select the option to delete that file from the catalog.  You could also use the Windows search function for that file, just to be sure.
    2. You may need to repeat step 4 but allow the longer search to take place.
  6. File already exists in catalog - BE CAREFUL.  This would seem like an easy cue to just delete these items from the catalog.  But, remember, at this point we've only selected files that were part of a version set.  If you delete the file out of a version set, you can't re-create the set without re-editing the original file.  The reason I was getting this error was that I had an EXTRA entry of the original file in my catalog, but it wasn't part of the version set.  So I had the following:
    1. image001.jpg
    2. image001.jpg (version set) (missing)
    3. image001-edited 1.jpg (version set)
  7. In step 6, I couldn't reconnect file #2 because file #1 was already connected to it.  So to fix this, you have to:
    1. Find image001.jpg in your catalog (the one NOT in a version set)
    2. Delete it from the catalog (DO NOT delete it from the hard disk)
    3. Select the image001.jpg (version set) in the catalog, the click File>Reconnect Missing File
  8. Now you have rid yourself of the duplicate entry in your catalog and successfully reconnected the missing file that was part of the version set.
  9. Repeat this process for other regular "Stacks" of photos
  10. Next you can do this for all other photos not part of a version set or stack.  If you have tagged your photos or used them in an album or creation, be careful to delete the one without these tags.