If you wish to change Lightroom Catalog location, you will need to make sure you’re not lacking out on any important steps.
Let’s begin from the start. Lightroom has three fundamental elements:
- Lightroom set up (program recordsdata)
- Lightroom catalog
- Lightroom picture library
If you wish to transfer Lightroom to a brand new pc, that you must transfer all three elements.
Nevertheless, for those who’re going to maneuver solely images to an even bigger arduous drive, it’s important to transfer one element – the picture library.
I’ve devoted tutorials for each situations (see beneath)
On this article, we’re going to deal with tips on how to transfer Lightroom Catalog to a brand new location!
What’s Lightroom Catalog?
A Lightroom catalog is a database that shops all of the details about pictures you import and their respective settings on your Lightroom workflow. The catalog accommodates a preview of every picture, metadata equivalent to key phrases, rankings, develop settings, and galleries group construction.
The catalog helps Lightroom to maintain observe of all of your images and their respective settings. You may have a number of catalogs for various initiatives, or you should use only one catalog for every part.
A Lightroom Catalog additionally shops:
- picture previews: they vary from low-resolution JPGs to full-size pictures
- creating data
- metadata (captions, key phrases, and so on.)
- galleries construction
Probably the most important benefit of a Lightroom Catalog is that each one the edits you do in your images are nondestructive. Any change you make to your picture might be saved as extra metadata XMP format, and the unique picture will keep untouched.
Causes for Transferring Lightroom Catalog
You Run out of House on Your Onerous Drive
In case your import course of will get caught, the commonest motive is that the pc has run out of house.
Even for those who retailer all of your pictures on a big exterior arduous drive, Lightroom wants loads of house subsequent to the catalog to retailer JPEG previews for every picture you import.
In case your arduous drive the place you retain the Lightroom catalog is getting full, it’s a good motive to maneuver the catalog to a brand new location with a ton of house.
An alternative choice is to scale back the scale of preview recordsdata Lightroom generates on import. However it is just a short lived answer.
- Go to Edit within the higher toolbar
- Choose “Catalog Settings”
- Choose “File Dealing with”
- Cut back preview measurement
You Need to Velocity Up Lightroom
Lightroom can get extremely gradual, particularly when coping with a big picture library. However there are methods of constructing the app extra responsive: you’ll be able to transfer your catalog to an SSD drive to hurry up Lightroom.
Lightroom catalog runs a lot sooner on SSDs than on HDDs.
On the similar time, SSDs are typically much less cost-effective than spinning HD, and storing massive picture libraries on them is price prohibitive. However working Lightroom catalog off SSD is a really efficient answer.
You Need to Again up Lightroom Catalog
When you’ve got just one copy of your catalog, dropping that catalog means dropping your pictures! So it’s all the time a good suggestion to again up your photos.
Lightroom often backs-up catalogs, but it surely does that utilizing the identical location. Transferring your catalog to an exterior drive ensures that your images are protected in case your arduous drive dies utterly.
Alternatively, you’ll be able to robotically tie your Lightroom catalog to a cloud storage location (like Dropbox). Nevertheless, this might entail paying a further month-to-month subscription charge.
How you can Change Lightroom Catalog Location
There are a few steps that you must comply with to alter the Lightroom Catalog location:
1. Find Lightroom Catalog from Catalog Settings
In the beginning, it’s important to discover the situation of your catalog.
How you can find Lightroom Catalog:
- From the highest fundamental menu, find the “EDIT” tab (“Lightroom Traditional” on Mac) and click on on it
- Choose “Catalog Settings”
- Within the “Basic” panel, click on “SHOW.”
- Explorer/Finder will open the catalog file location – you’ll be able to acknowledge it by the .lrcat file extension
2. Copy Lightroom Catalog and All Supporting Recordsdata
Issues to contemplate:
You would possibly need to make sure you’re additionally copying all of the supporting recordsdata when copying a complete catalog.
Supporting recordsdata embrace Previews File, Good Previews file, or the Helper. lrdata catalog. They comprise all of the related data out of your Lightroom Catalog – like settings, previews, and presets.
It’s best to change the situation of your catalog by copying, not by transferring.
When copying a catalog, you’ve got the unique one and create a reproduction within the new location. I feel it’s higher to be protected than sorry: eradicating recordsdata from the unique location solely when the method of transferring is profitable ensures you received’t lose any of your work.
You realize the situation of your Lightroom Catalog (.LRCAT), so that you solely have to repeat it from there to the brand new location.
How you can copy and paste Lightroom Catalog:
- Spotlight all of the recordsdata contained in the Lightroom catalog folder (search for the lrcat file extension: catalog.lrcat, catalog.lrcat-data, Previews.lrdata, Helper.lrdata, and so on.)
- Proper-click on them and choose “Copy.”
3. Paste Lightroom Catalog and Supporting Recordsdata to New Location
How you can Paste Lightroom Catalog and Supporting recordsdata to New Location:
- After clicking on “Copy,” go to the situation you need to transfer your catalog and recordsdata in
- Proper-click and choose “Paste.”
- Wait till the switch is over. It would take a while if in case you have massive picture library.
4. Open Lightroom Catalog from New Location
It’s time to verify in case your catalog was copied efficiently by opening it from the brand new location.
How you can open Lightroom Catalog from a brand new location:
- Double-click on the .lrcat file within the new location
5. Discover Lightroom Lacking Folders (Non-compulsory)
If you happen to see a query mark subsequent to recordsdata within the Folder panel, Lightroom can’t discover sure folders or images. On this case, you’ll should search for them manually.
How you can discover lacking folders:
- Within the Folders panel, right-click on the lacking folder (search for the query mark)
- From the dropdown menu, go to “Discover Lacking Folder.”
- Re-link the lacking folder by going to the brand new location – Lightroom will robotically map folders to the brand new location
6. Double-Verify the New Catalog Location (Non-compulsory)
It may possibly’t harm to verify once more, so comply with the steps you probably did in the beginning when discovering your catalog:
MAC: Lightroom Traditional > Catalog Settings > SHOW > Verify the catalog location
PC: Edit > Catalog Settings > SHOW > Verify the catalog location
Ought to I Transfer Lightroom Catalog to Exterior Onerous Drive?
The reply to this query is: it relies upon!
However I might not do it.
Let me clarify.
It is not uncommon for touring photographers to maneuver the Lightroom catalog to an exterior arduous drive to allow them to run Lightroom from desktop computer systems at residence and from laptops when touring.
Sadly, this course of slows down Lightroom considerably.
Lightroom is just not well-known for being a quick software. And the best means to enhance its efficiency is to run the Lightroom catalog from the quickest drive, ideally from an inner SSD.
Transferring the Lightroom catalog to an exterior arduous drive, which is all the time a lot slower than inner, will jeopardize the efficiency of Lightroom. It would run painfully gradual. I do know; I attempted it.
However I’ve an alternate answer, which I exploit throughout my journeys.
I create a Momentary Catalog on my laptop computer for each journey and merge it with the grasp catalog once I return residence.
For a devoted tutorial, consult with this text on tips on how to merge Lightroom Catalogs.
Change Lightroom Catalog Location | Ultimate Ideas
A Lightroom Catalog is a database file that shops your images, metadata, and all of the processing you’ve got utilized to your images.
No matter your causes for transferring your Lightroom catalog, now you’ve got a step-by-step tutorial that can assist you alongside! As luck would have it, a mislaid Lightroom catalog is a simple sufficient factor to alter.
