Move Lightroom catalog to new computer or external harddrive
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 ส.ค. 2024
- Move Lightroom catalog to a new computer or external harddrive, and how to do it. It's super easy.
Learn more about how to move Lightroom catalog like how I import photos here on TH-cam, or at Matt Simplified (mattsimplified).
Sometimes you need to move Lightroom catalogs to a new computer or an external harddrive - either you get a new computer or you run out of space on your SSD drive. Moving your Lightroom catalog is really simple, and here's how you do it.
Timestamps
0:00 - Intro
1:17 - Export as Catalog
1:44 - Export options
3:37 - We wait
4:01 - What to do with errors
4:50 - Original photos
5:13 - Clearing your harddrive
6:10 - Reopening the exported catalog
Watch more videos like this one, 'Move Lightroom catalog to new computer or external harddrive' right here on Matt, Simplified. - แนวปฏิบัติและการใช้ชีวิต
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How I import my Lightroom photos - th-cam.com/video/N2mCCV2eBdo/w-d-xo.html
Nice work Matt. Can you do a video on which files make up the catalogue. If you have the time and energy, tell me if I'm right about the following please?!? - Just today I think I have worked out that all the files you need to move when moving the catalogue (if you need to move, to say another drive so you know exactly where they are and which ones make LR work properly) I think they include the following files - all files needed would be called (I'll call it name) name .lrcat, name Helper lrdat, name Previews.lrdata, name Sync.lrdata (I think because I sync some files to Dropbox) and of course the magic one, (depending on where you put this last important catalogue file - lets call it Steve) - Steve.lrcat. Now, am I on the right track Matt? I can't tell you how many hours I have spent trying to understand this system. I have moved catalogues only to find a whole lot of problems, some of which you have covered here. Do I need the Helper one? I could delete it and find out but maybe you can tell me. I didn't know you also need to copy the backups of the catalogues (at least the last back up just in case), Also, the Lightroom Settings folder as well, which I didn't know existed or didn't know where it existed. Thanks for your help.
@@stevep8553 Hey mate, check out the folder shown in 6:14 and you'll see what the folder should contain. You can have the original photos outside the folder but you need to export the structure that way. It's best you keep everything in the one folder it exports as and don't break the files up into different locations. The other thing you mentioned was Dropbox - I wouldn't put anything in Dropbox other than exported jpegs because the way Dropbox syncs can cause issues with partial file issues. I'm not sure the technicality behind that, but I remember someone had some issues with that in the past. Drag it all (the whole folder with all the files shown in the 6:14 grab) onto your external harddrive, keep them all together and you should be good!
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Thanks so much. Your video has been a great help at 2am.
I can sleep peacefully tonight 😁
Thanks again
This is the only straight forward guide I found! Thanks!
You’re welcome!
very good explanation, thank you for walking through whole thing
you just made my life so much easier. thanks buddy
Thx for this Matt, much appreciated video, I had forgotten how to get my imac harddrive space back after 3 years of imagery clogging my poor imac up. Your right it is super easy and I will keep this going as a normal practice from now on. only been using lightroom for 12 years lol.
Glad it was helpful, mate!
Really helpful video, subscribed!
super helpful video!! thanks!!!
thanks for the help matt great tutorial
Thanks
I have an older version of Lightroom (version 6 stand alone version, not Creative Cloud).
My LR Previews and Catalogs are taking up 70GB of my C Boot Drive (SSD Type).
By doing this transfer to an external drive, will everything be transferred so I can reopen the photos (and edit info) without losing and data. I do usually drag the images in the Library Module to transfer the images to an external drive, but unfortunately, I guess that method will not port over the Catalog and previews. I wish it did.
Well done video. Thanks.
Phil
NYC Area
I have been searching for how to copy or clone my LR external drive to a larger drive without success. But your tutorial shows you clearing the internal drive once you have moved them. Would that be the same process from external drive to external drive. I ultimately want to keep my original drive as a backup but also have all the photos copied on the new drive. You seem like you would have direction on that question.
Okay, give and advise, My raw photos and my edited photos are already in a external drive because "Safety First" BUT the problem is that my back up is on my hard dive. How do I safely move all my workflow into my new Mac mini? as I said all my pictures are already on a external Drive.
Hi Matt. Followed your instructions. Files transferred however, edit information not available which I also expected to be carried forward. Did I miss something? Colin
Hi Matt
I currently use a laptop and i have the main catalogue, and backups, and images on the external SSD.
I'm soon getting a desktop PC which i want to use most of the time, and sometimes use the laptop with the same catalogue
What i want to do though is transfer the main catalogue from the external SSD to the new desktop PC for better performance, while keeping the images on the external SSD, along with the backups of the catalogue, but also occasionally use the external SSD on the laptop.
Is this possible to do or even beneficial?
I prefer not to store the images on the desktop nor the laptop
RE: Lightroom Subscription, latest version
Whenever you export, aren't you making a new catalog? So, now you have two catalogs on your working storage drive, the LaCie?
I first need to get everything on a new laptop. I also use an external (4TB) drive for working storage (The SSD (1TB) on the laptop is used for new shoots or a year or two of shooting).
After everything is on the new laptop, I selectively move finished images (.NEF's, .XMP's, and JPG's) to the working storage external drive, not 'as catalog'.
For now I am not making catalogs as I put the images on the external. I guess I would leave the images in the laptop catalog, in case I wanted to bring them back into the laptop for editing.
I understand that the moved folders would show up in the laptop catalog as ?marks. I may have to consider exporting as catalog soon.
Bottom line concept question; If you export as catalog, and import that catalog, is it merging with the catalog that is open or creating a new catalog, with previews and associated files, in LR, so that now two catalogs will be in the File/Menu? I will want Import catalog to always merge with the catalog that I have open (which will be only one).
Thank you for a good and clear video. I am a photographer and my question is, do you make a new catalog for each client or a new catalog for each theme? For me that would be a new catalog for all the family portraits, a new catalog for all my dog portraits a new catalog for all of my commercial jobs. How do you organize your work? In the past I have had one catalog with everything in it. I organize it with the year, then type of job then client name. I am curious how others are doing it? Thanks!
I do a new catalog for each shoot/wedding. This makes Lightroom move so much faster on my end. I name each catalog according to the name of the couple I photographed and save the catalog inside the folder that holds the RAW photos on my external hard drive. This system works for me!
@@nataliedevries9710 Yes good. . I have started to do the same thing now. It seems to work out good. My concern was that for each catalog it would use up a lot more memory on the hard disk. It would be interesting to know how much a catalog uses without anything on it. Come to think of it, I could find that out. Thanks for answering 👍😀
Remember, you can't search between catalogs. I have business on one drive letter and personal on another, but they are all in the same catalog.
@@MDMiller60 Yes that’s true. I’m learning pro and cons with the different ways.
Anyone know what to do if my adobe ran out but I still want to back it up? I can't open Lightroom now
Hi, I followed the instructions in your video, and I keep getting an error message - Lightroom was unable to create the new catalog due to an unexpected failure. How do I fix this? Thank you
Hey Matt thanks for this video. So I am selling my laptop and need to factory reset it. But first I need to get my photos off of it. Is this exactly what I need to do? Or is there more I need to do. Thanks so much looking forward to your response
No worries, Brad. Exporting your library is the most important, and you also might want to back up your Lightroom Presets if you have any. Go into Lightroom's preferences, and under the Presets tab along the top ribbon you can click on Show Lightroom Develop Presets. Back all those up and then put them back in when you have your new computer. If you don't have any Lightroom presets, just what is covered in this video is all you'll need to do.
@@MattSimplified your the best man. You made this so easy! Cheers to you!
@@BradyHommel You’re welcome, dude!
Hey Matt. So i was syncing Lightroom cc with Lightroom classic, it was syncing my different folders that i have in Lightroom, but then Lightroom classic was grabbing other photos from my MAC drive and this was taking up storage. Is this right? And in this video i see you’re actually transferring from that same folder also. Is this how its meant to happen?
Apologies for the long reply, I'm not 100% of the specifics of what you're asking so I'll go into more depth of different things you might be referring to.
Basically this tutorial makes a NEW copy of the images. Exporting the catalogue takes a fresh stamp of all reference data and creates new files to bundle into a new folder. That's why I set the export directory to the external harddrive because my SSD can't handle two libraries that are the same on it - the file sizes are too big. So I go straight from my open library to exporting onto an external harddrive and then it's safe to delete anything and everything on your open library catalogue because you will have TWO of them - one on your harddrive that you've akways been using, and then a backup on the external drive. Once the backup is done, I delete the copy on my local harddrive and keep the one on the external. When I want to work from it on one or two images, I can open the library using the file the export created on the external harddrive. If I have a new computer and I want to copy it, I can do that by dragging it to any local folder that makes sense on your computer. I keep mine in my Pictures folder on my Mac. As long as you're bringing everything back over, and you're only using your exported copy on its own, it doesn't matter if you work from your library from your external drive or copy it to your local drive to work from. I just wouldn't recommend keeping two versions of the same library because it will get confusing as soon as you import new photos. Just keep the one. I sort them by years. So 2020 I had a local library, then at the end of 2020 I exported my 2020 folder to an external drive in case I ever need it again and created a new catalogue for this year called 2021. If you're wanting to do something other than what I mentioned above, let me know!
For the other bit of the question - I must admit, I'm not the biggest user of Lightroom CC so take my advice with a grain of salt here, but I would be looking into your preferences. Go to Lightroom's preferences and under the Lightroom Sync banner tab there's some info about what is syncing. I have everything unticked in here. I don't have anything else customised in terms of auto imports or syncing. If you're lost with it, what I often do is log out of whatever is doing what you don't want it to do, then sign back in and choose your preferences again. Sorry I can't give you a firm answer with this, but that would be my line of thinking.
how bout the source folder of the catalog? I'm moving from old SSD to new, or I could just locate files if its lost?
maybe the golden rule is not to rename the source folder
Hey mate,
Good video. I was wondering if you could help me. So I havent been on my computer for 2 years. I have 4 TB External HD and it has all my photos on it, and I have an SSD with the lightroom catalog on it.
So this used to be mprocessess. Move all my photos from Drone or Camera to 4 TB EHD thIn i would click open the Lightroom Cat on the SSD and do an impofromfom there. Hocan I i move my Lightroom Cat to another SSD so i dont use the smaller one?
I wouldn’t split my catalogue from the source files. Keep them all together. If you can’t, I would ASSUME you can relocate them if the reference to the 4tb HHD doesn’t retain after you’ve moved the catalogue file from the SSD
c drive getting full exporting photo in lightroom
The Chats!
Just to be clear, when you export the catalog, it copies (not move) the catalog and the raw images, correct? Also, does it maintain the all the folder names? For example. I have a Wildlife folder for each year (i.e. 2020, 2021 etc.). Will those folder names still exist with all the raw images?
It still retains the structure but also only exports the files within that folder and sub folders (but make sure the checkbox is ticked when you choose the destination)
@@MattSimplified Thanks
Please stop calling things bad boy I’m so turned off of that just say it’s a really effective little hard drive or it’s a great hard drive, stop calling it “bad boy “so cringe
Probably the most bad boy comment iv ever seen on TH-cam thus far.
@@Tetrahex_uk Pretty bad boy, if I say so myself
I’m so sorry
Stick with lil~bastardo.