How To Move A Lightroom Catalog
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 ส.ค. 2024
- I am preparing for a computer upgrade and part of that is relocating my Lightroom catalog to an external disk. In this video, I’ll show you my method for moving a catalog to another location and keeping your photos and collections intact.
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Thank you so much. There are so many videos out there that make this process unnecessarily complicated. Your method was simple, and it worked seamlessly. I didn't need the portability, but my catalog was hogging up too much space on my root drive (500GB SSD), and I just needed to move it to one of my internal 8TB HDD's. Your method worked flawlessly.
Awesome. Glad it helped!
Scott... MY MAN. Worked like a dream.
I'm not the most tech minded and have tried other tutorials but yours did the trick perfect. Just freed up close to 60GB. Just wanted to say thanks.
Cool!!
Simple, clear explanations ! It's just what I was searching ! Super useful. All the best
Thanks for watching. Tell a friend! :-)
Thanks for your tutorial Scott. Very timely for me; I bought a bigger/faster external drive and I need to move my catalog and my photos there. Now I know how to find the catalog in the new drive and also my LR library. Thanks! And happy holidays.
Perfect! Good luck with the move. My new system arrived yesterday... now just to carve out time to open it up. Maybe next week :)
Thank you for the simple, clear instructions. Very helpful!
You are welcome!
Great video Scott, explained perfectly what I was wanting to do!
Glad you liked it!
Thank you. This is just what I needed.
Clear, concise, everything I could have asked for. Thank you!!
You're welcome! Thank *you* for watching and taking the time to comment.
Scott I had to recently update to Windows 11 and have a new PC built and this is just what I was looking for. Well done!!!!
Great! Enjoy your new PC.
Thank you so much for this video. It was very helpful!!!
Great simple video to follow that was the perfect length - thank you!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Thank you! Super helpful, you're a great teacher.
Thanks very much, Shaun. Glad you enjoyed it!
Really good explanations! Just what I needed to do!! Thank you!
Glad it helped!
Thanks, easy peasy. much appreciated.
You bet!
I and My C: Drive would like to thank you, Thank You.
Amazing video, really useful for me
Thank you for this. I ran out of storage on my Mac. This has helped alot
Glad it helped!
Thank you for a great, useful, very well explained tutorial/video 😃😃
You're very welcome!
My God, that is brilliant, thanks a ton!
You're welcome!
Once you know the secret handshake LR is simple. I picked up a new MBP a few days ago which has an 8TB internal drive. For the first time ever, I have my catalog and photos on my main computer drive. Wow! When I click on one of the LR previews in the Develop module the full size image is instant. It is really amazing as my camera is 60mp. I also like that now I am backing up my photos every hour with Time Machine. When I copied my photos folder to the new computer the pop up said it would take 4 hours as it was 3.5 TB, but it finished in 45 minutes. I have found when moving my whole photos folder, it is best to do it in Finder and then like you did with the catalog, rename the old folder and tell LR where the new folder is.
Nice! I generally keep my catalog (with the previews) on my internal drive for speedier browsing. Jealous of SSD speeds for editing :)
thank you!
PERFECT PERFECT PERFECT tutorial - exactly what I was looking for! Happy to subscribe and LIKE from me. 100%
Glad it helped James.
thanks man
Thank you
Thank u
Hi Scott, your way works but I’m surprised you just didn’t use the back up catalogue feature in Lightroom. I just selected where to backup and chose an external hard drive that was my Drobo 5D3. In fact I’m always backing up the catalog.
On another’s note I just updated from a MacBook Pro mid 2015 to the new MacBook Pro 16”. Went with the following specs:
2.3 GHz Intel Core i9 8-Core
32GB of 2666 MHz DDR4 RAM 1TB SSD
AMD Radeon Pro 5500M GPU (8GB GDDR6)
Finding it handles images from the Sony A7RM4 much better with Lightroom.
Good luck with your new system. I’m sure your will see a huge improvement. Cheers!
Hi Stuart... yeah, I’m backing up all the time as well. Daily at a minimum. Didn’t occur to me to take a backup and then point at it. That’d work equally well. And glad to hear you are seeing an improvement with your new system.
But my Lightroom can't fing my photos after that. I can see them but only that.Iven If i locate them insted of locating them all it is one by a time...
Thank you for this. My catalog for Lightroom slows down my computer so much. If I move this catalog to an external hard drive will that speed up Lightroom or do I have to delete it altogether from Lightroom?
Hi Linda... moving the catalog doesn't automatically make LR faster. It'd depend on the speed of your computer's hard drive vs. the external drive. If your computer hard drive is slow and the external drive is fast (like an SSD), you may see an improvement.
Great, it works like a charm. However, I did experience an issue not directly related to the topic at hand. I experienced a power outage a few weeks back and for some reason my backup power supply allowing me to shut down properly, failed. Anywho, when power was restored everything seemed normal on the Mac, save for one important thing, the external SSD containing my LR Catalog did not mount. No issue with other 3 external drives, just the ”LR Drive”. It finally mounted after 30 minutes of being in full panic mode, so have you experienced or heard of anything like this? The drive in question is a Sandisk 1TB Extreme.
No direct experience. I’d consider the drive suspect, though.
Thanks for the video! One thing I wonder; should I keep the catalogue on the same drive as windows and lightroom, or should I have it on a separate drive? What is faster? Presume that both drive 1 and drive 2 are identical in read/write speeds.
SSD 1: win + lr + cat
Vs
SSD 1: win + lr
SSD 2: Catalogue
What will give the best performance?
I honestly don't know which is the most performant. I choose to keep my catalog on the same external drive as my photo library and I don't notice any slowdown due to drive access. I like this arrangement, because when I upgrade computers, the catalog & library move as a cohesive unit. The catalog is never "out of contact" with the library and the move is very simple.
A super video. Clearly explained with little atmospheric haze which so many other videos seem to promulgate. I have one question. Having successfully moved the old catalogue to it's new location, why not simple delete the old catalogue? Is there a technical reason why one should not do this? I'd appreciate your expert advice. Many thanks.
No reason not to purge the old catalog once you’ve confirmed your move is good.
@@ScottDavenport Thank you for that. Much appreciated.
Scott, I am happy to find this video. I am waiting for new Mac and also going to upgrade LR in the New Mac. Right now my Catalog and Raw files are in my external drive. When I get new Mac first I will install the LR, how and where do I move catalog to the new Mac? Please help. Hope you give another video to demonstrate how to install LR catalog from external drive to New Mac and leave raw files in the external drive. Thank you in advance.
HI Eileen ... I don't think I'll be making a video on that in the near future, but the process is similar. When you move the catalog to your new Mac and open it for the first time, you'll need to tell the catalog where to find your photos. Assuming all of your photos are under a single top-level folder, in LR on your new Mac, right-click the top level folder in your catalog and use Find Missing Folder to reconnect your catalog to your external drive. As always when making major moves like this ... do your backups first! :)
@@ScottDavenport Thanks Scott
Question, If I transfer the LR catalog and the raw files/photos from my laptop to another pc, will it work properly to continue the post processing? btw, my laptop has lower version of LR than the other pc I'm planning to transfer the files and catalog.
Moving from a lower version of LR (your laptop) to a higher version (your PC) should be OK. I'd check on Adobe's site for any known issues, especially if the gap between versions is large. Make backups (of course!). The higher version may update the catalog when first opened. Once a catalog is updated, there is no guarantee an older version of software will open it ... so your move may be a one-way street.
Im trying this right now. Have a Hugh catalog thats a mess. Question- After everything syncs up, is it all good to delete the old location?
Always have a backup! :) And yes, once you've sorted and settled your catalog moves, it is OK to delete the catalogs you are not using. What I usually do is move my no-longer-used catalogs to a "For Deletion" folder for a month or two. Someplace that Lightroom has never looked for catalogs before, so LR won't find them. Once I'm comfortable the move is complete, purge the "For Deletion" area.
Hi Scott, thanks for this. Quick question: once I migrated the catalog, can I delete all pictures from the internal hard drive without loosing them? Or do they have to be kept on in order for LR to find it? I had issues with this before, so just wanted to make sure.
The catalog and the actual photo files are two different things. The catalog points to your folders of photos. In this video, my photos are already on the external drive. I was moving the catalog only. My photos never moved.
If you need to move photos, the safest approach to move folders within Lightroom. Move the folders from one drive to another, so Lightroom can keep the catalog in sync. You can move things outside of LR, but will have to "locate" the folders (i.e. tell Lightroom where you moved them).
And never delete anything until you know all photos are moved and your catalog is working. And make backups :)
@@ScottDavenport - thanks Scott, I think I figured it out. Thank you.
Hi Scott,
Thank you for the information. I have a different scenario for which I hope you can help me. I need to move my photos from my currently DAS type hard disk to a new Synology NAS. I am wondering how can I let the catalog file know where to find the photos after I do the transfer?
One option is to do the moves within Lightroom itself. The catalog is updated as the photos are moved. The other option is to use the "locate folder" option. If a folder of images cannot be located by the catalog, it has a "?" badge on it. Right-click and choose "locate folder", navigate accordingly, and select the proper folder. The catalog will be intact again. Suggest walking through this on a test folder first so you get accustomed to the process.
@@ScottDavenport Thank You Scott.
Informative video. I want to be sure i am moving the correct files. My Lightroom Folder has contained within it sub folders as follows: Backups, Lightroom Catalog Previews Irdata, Lightroom Catalog and Temporary Import Data. Is the Lightroom Parent folder listed above the correct folder to move to my secondary drive? Thanks.
Phil
NYC Area
That should work fine. The catalog folder to move (with its contents) is listed in the General tab of File > Catalog Settings. Based on what you describe, you're also putting your catalog backups into the same folder. After moving your catalog folder, the next time you exit Lightroom and get the Back Up Catalog prompt, you'll want to adjust the Backup Folder to point to your new drive. (You could also do those in reverse order, I suppose.)
@@ScottDavenport Thanks very much for the clarification. The Lightroom folder is about 135GB, so it is chewing up a lot of my SSD boot drive. I want to open up drive space on my boot drive for recording (music) software that I will be installing soon and this Lightroom folder is chewing up most of the space.
Maybe opening more space will also speed up Lightroom (hoping) as it is painfully slow at times with the larger file sizes of my Canon 5D Mark IV...When I get the new Canon R5 it will likely be worse. Thanks Scott.
Phil
NYC Area
What is your new computer? I have upgraded my 2013 Mac Pro via OWC. The 2019 "Cheese Grater" Mac Pro is WAY TOO costly here in Australia, so I'll be keeping my "Trash Can" running for much longer.
I am currently running a 2015 era iMac. I went with the iMac Pro for the new system. While I am expecting a boost in speed for my video work with the multi-cores, the full-on Mac Pro is overkill for my needs. And well beyond my budget. It was enough to scrape up the money for the iMac Pro (gonna be reeling for a bit on that one :).
what external disk you recommend for photos and catalog thaks
I’m using G-Tech Studio drives connected via thunderbolt. The exact make and model I use is posted here www.scottdavenportphoto.com/gear-compute-storage
Would you recommend running the lightroom catalog from the external drive or from the internal drive on computer?
I prefer to keep my catalog with my photo library on an external drive. It makes it easier when I update computers - just plug in the drive and I'm running. If your external drive is fast, like an SSD, you probably won't notice a difference in performance.
Scott Davenport perfect! thank you so much for replying
Scott Davenport if you were running on ssd instead of internal drive would you need to move your user preset folder over as well?
What if i have both my catalog and my photos in 1 external drive and i want to migrate to a bigger drive and work from there? (unfortunately none of them are ssd and i have no option of moving my catalog on my macbook since i got only 1 TB of storage :( )
With your catalog and photos on a single drive, it's self-contained. The only delta may be name of the drive (ex: /Volumes/Small Drive versus /Volumes/Large Drive). Shutdown Lightroom. Copy/clone the content of the old drive to your new, larger drive. Eject the old drive, rename the new drive to match the old name. Start up Lightroom again, should just work. (and you have a full back on the old drive too :)
@@ScottDavenport Actually scrap what i said so far, i was wrong, my catalogs are on my macbook, and my photos were on this old lacie 5tb drive, so i got a new one that is 10tb, and i need to just move the photos there which i did, but not sure if the edits and everything will be updated and if lightroom will "see" the new drive and if so if it will continue to work like nothing happened, same as before
hi Scott
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
I’ll suggest exploring putting your catalog and photos on a single external drive. (That’s how I run.) It will simplify things for you, because the photos and catalog are a single “unit” you can move between computers. Good luck!
@@ScottDavenport yes I already have everything in a single ext drive, but I'm wondering if it's better to copy the catalogue (not photos) to the internal PC drive to use as the main catalogue in the internal PC drive, but to use the ext drive (with photos and catalogue backups) on the laptop?
I've heard it's better performance to use the internal drive, but not sure if it's true
It might be better, might not. If things are too slow for you, try it and see if you find a difference. I’ve tried both ways and on my system I don’t notice enough of a difference. So I choose the simplicity of a single drive for everything.
Hi Scott, would you have a solution for this problem. My old Imac died, I was able to save the old 1T ssd with all my photos and have it on an enclosure to plug into my new Mac mini. Do you know of anyway to point the new Lightroom to this drive without importing the images , I only have 256 g on this ssd. When I import from a card I put them straight onto the external. I just can’t find away to access the old images without importing them then moving them back to the external.....any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
If the LR catalog file is also on the salvaged SSD, open that catalog in LR and reconnect the missing folders. On first open, LR may be confused as to where your photos live, showing "?" tags in the Folders browser in Library. Right click on such a folder and choose "Find Missing Folder" (or something similar, I'm going by memory). Choose the appropriate folder on your SSD and LR can reconnect everything.
Thanks for your reply Scott. The catalog was there and I did bring most of them in successfully, still have to find some of the others. I’ve never used more than one catalog so now I have to find out how to move between catalogs and rename them. Thanks so much for your quick response, I really appreciate it.
I looked up the G drive you mentioned. Are you using the RAID version? I see it’s a thunderbolt connection but not an SSD.....do you still find it fast enough for editing photos from it? Just moving computers and trying to figure out best way to do everything going forward! Thanks so much for any help or tips!
Hi Laurie ... I had my G-Tech set up as a RAID0 (so all disks in an enclosure presented as a single, large drive). And I had two enclosures for redundancy. I've since moved to a TB3 set of drives. www.scottdavenportphoto.com/blog/owc-mercury-elite-pro-thunderbolt-3-dock-review
Both systems were fine for me with photo editing. My workflow is operating on a single image at a time (I'm not processing dozens or hundreds in one go). Wrt SSD, I'd love to have SSD drives, but the storage capacities I need make SSDs an expensive proposition :)
You could also use a smaller SSD drive for a "working set" of images, and move them to permanent storage once the majority of your work is done.
@@ScottDavenport thank you. Yes my problem is I am working on hundreds of high school senior photos. I want to find a way to edit and backup externally but be able to go back to re edit as needed when clients request. Obviously huge external SSD’s are too expensive. Wondering about the speed of a thunderbolt external hard drive for editing and saving LR catalog and photos? Do you edit off your OWC? I am a PC user with thunderbolt 3 ports. Would this work for me? Photos only not video
I’m editing directly off the OWC.
@@ScottDavenport thanks so much for your replies and videos. It has all been so helpful. I looked up the OWC and it looks perfect for what I need. I am not sure aobut one thing. Are you using a RAID0 or not. You mentioned about redundancy but also RAID 0? What do you think about setting it up as RAID 0 and then just using a cheaper HDD as backup and something like Backblaze. Or is it better to set up RAID 1? I am looking a the OWC 36 TB Mercury Elite Pro Doc for my dell laptop. And do you keep your photo/video editing apps on your laptop? Thanks again!!
RAID0 gets you speed and capacity. However, the enclosure becomes the failure point (strictly speaking, it’s always a failure point ... what if it doesn’t power up?). A cheaper, slower HDD as a backup is fine. Ideally, you’d never need to access it. It’s your safety net. I prefer a local backup for expediency in the event of failures. I also use Backblaze for offsite backup, but recovery from the net can take a long time.
Once I move the catalog can I delete from original harddrive?
Once you’re comfortable and certain you’re working off the catalog on the new drive, yes.
hai, after moving it in the external hard drive may i deleted the old one?
I usually back up the old catalog, rename it catalog to something obvious, and run for a few weeks with the new catalog. once you're comfortable that the move has worked and your library and catalog are intact, yes, you can remove the old one. always make a backup :)
@@ScottDavenport okay thankyou
Does this work with the new Lightroom?
It works with Lightroom Classic (LrC, in the new nomenclature). I do not know about Lightroom CC, the cloud-based mobile-centric editor. I don't use that product.
@@ScottDavenport Thanks, I’ve been trying all day and I think the issue is with the application taking too much space while running. Don’t know what to do.
Can you delete the original catalog ?
Sure, once you are comfortable that the catalog move is complete. And you're backed up!