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C
crsouser
Known Participant
January 26, 2012
Open for Voting

P: Lighroom Preview.lrdata, allow it to be put in different location of catalog

  • January 26, 2012
  • 19 replies
  • 597 views

I have pitched this in other forums.. I HAVE READ the How to Optimize Lightroom performance and acted on every item and then some I have figured out on my own as well as read elsewhere.

Though through all of this one of the things I cannot still do to both better manage diskspace and performance is seperate my Previews.lrdata file from the Catalog.lrcat. My previews, images, program, and catalog themselves are stored off on separate drives.. but the previews file is still full of images and over 60 gigs at the particular moment and I regularly purge it off down to 0.

I would like to be able to put all of these items in separate drive locations if I choose. Today I have items 1-4 in separate locations.
1) Program / OS
2) RAW Images
3) Catalog.lrcat
4) Previews
5) Previews.lrdata

Christopher

    19 replies

    L
    Lumigraphics
    Legend
    October 27, 2022

    And I'm asking that this be changed. Hello. Please pay attention to the topic.

    DdeGannes
    Community Expert
    DdeGannesCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    October 27, 2022

    It's not a problem it is so by design. You cannot separated the Catalog from the supporting files.

    when you are workin in LrC it is reading and writing to the Catalog and at the same time updating the previews so changes in the display on your screen show as quickly as possible.

     

     

    Regards, Denis: iMac 27” mid-2015, macOS 11.7.10 Big Sur; 2TB SSD, 24 GB Ram, GPU 2 GB; LrC 12.5,; Lr 6.5, PS 24.7,; ACR 15.5,; (also Laptop Win 11, ver 24H2, LrC 15.0.1, PS 27.0; ) Camera Oly OM-D E-M1.
    L
    Lumigraphics
    Legend
    October 27, 2022

    Exactly, this is the problem.

    DdeGannes
    Community Expert
    DdeGannesCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    October 26, 2022

    At Lumigraphics, all the previews files and other supporting data files must reside in the same folder as the Catalog file, if you wish to move the Catalog to a new location you have to move all the contents from the Lightroom folder to the new location. If not Lightroom will have to rebuild all the previews and support files. All those files need to be on a fast drive connected to your Computer internal or external.

    While you work Lightroom is reading writing to them.

     

    Regards, Denis: iMac 27” mid-2015, macOS 11.7.10 Big Sur; 2TB SSD, 24 GB Ram, GPU 2 GB; LrC 12.5,; Lr 6.5, PS 24.7,; ACR 15.5,; (also Laptop Win 11, ver 24H2, LrC 15.0.1, PS 27.0; ) Camera Oly OM-D E-M1.
    L
    Lumigraphics
    Legend
    October 26, 2022

    My LrC catalog is a bit over 4GB but my previews file is over 50GB. This is motivated by the current LR12/Ventura bug but in general, I'd love to have the catalog file on my fast but small internal drive and previews on a larger external.

    Timothy.Spear
    Timothy.Spear
    Inspiring
    June 21, 2022

    I want to move Smart Previews to another location. Not have it hard coded to a location on drive C.

    I

    have a "junk" drive I use for stuff which I do NOT backup but keep synced copies of stuff held in the cloud for performance. I want the ability to have Lr use this drive for everything. My C drive, although having 200GB of available space, when I enable all local Smart Previews I end up with less than 30GB free; which is not beneficial for a stable Windows platform.

     

    Tim

     

    David Mohr
    Community Manager
    David MohrCommunity Manager
    Community Manager
    April 4, 2019
    Google sez:

    "Is it possible to insert a shooting mode with golden section? With the possibility of deciding the display"
    K
    kimcannon55
    Participant
    May 16, 2017


    I would like to have previews and smart previews in a separate folder to my catalogue. This would enable me to have my catalogue in a dropbox folder, always synched in the cloud and over into my laptop. At the moment I have a catalogue with 50 gigs of previews which is just too much to upload and keep uploading.
    areohbee
    areohbee
    Legend
    July 7, 2013
    Easiest way to relocate previews or smart previews:

    Using Preview Exporter (in plugin manager), click the 'Move Previews Away' button:


    Image is not available



    Note: It is just using links, so only solves problem of not knowing how to use the link commands.

    Rob

    F
    FeedbackCommunityMember
    Inspiring
    January 11, 2013
    Lightroom: I would like to be able to have the previews on a different drive to the catalog ... or simply be able to use a link or junction (currently Lightroom prevents this for a reason that I don't understand ... perhaps to do with not allowing network drives?). This would mean that the catalog could be on an SSD, for example, and the previews on a hard drive.

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