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berty1973
Participating Frequently
August 8, 2026
Question

Another moving images and catalogue files to a new location

  • August 8, 2026
  • 4 replies
  • 25 views
  1. I’m an enthusiastic amateur at using LRc, needing help.
  2. I have an external 4TB SSD which houses a few thousand images (over 3TB) and the associated catalogue files.
  3. I bought 2 x 6TB external SSDs and configured them in Raid 0 because the drive at Point 1 is nearing capacity. These were far cheaper than buying a larger single drive.
  4. I have copies of original images safely stored in the cloud.
  5. I’m about to go on a photography trip which I will need space for about another 2TB to 4TB.
  6. My goal is to move the current 4TB to the Raid Drive, and put the associated LRc files on my internal M4 Mac Mini.
  7. Despite reading up on and watching videos of helpful ‘stuff’, I'm not confident or clear how to undertake this 2-part transition correctly without at least one ‘wheel’ coming off. 
  8. In summary, how do I effectively move my images to the external drive and move the catalogue files to my internal drive?

Many thanks in advance for your help!

    4 replies

    dj_paige
    dj_paige
    Legend
    August 8, 2026

    Two parts

    1. You want the catalog files to be on the internal drive. All you need to do is copy and paste in your operating system. This copy and paste must include the catalog file (*.LRCAT) and associated Lrcat-data file.
    2. Moving photos to a Raid drive. First, copy and paste (or cut and paste) the photos to your RAID drive using your operating system. Then point LrC to the RAID drive as the location of your photos using the instructions in this document, particularly Figure 4, where the author re-connects an entire hierarchy of folders by re-connecting the parent folder. In this step, the folder hierarchy on the RAID drive must be exactly the same as the folder hierarchy on your current external drive. Do not move photos from one folder to another in this step.
    B
    berty1973Author
    Participating Frequently
    August 8, 2026

    Hello dj_paige. Many thanks for very swift response and your helpful guidance.

    I’ve just checked the current drive which contains the images and found maybe a more troubling issue before I move any files or images.

    On that drive I have several folders and sub-folders. For example the top one is photographs, with a sub-folders Countries and Locations, where I have several country folders, some having LRc catalogue folders. For example, file “Kenya Trip - 2025.lrcat-data” (and other .data files), AND  another (for Namibia) “Travel-v12.lrcat-data” and “Travel-v13.lrcat-data”, etc.

    Whilst I thought that by having different folders that would be helpful for identification, it isn’t! However, I’m clearly useless at LightRoom because I have so many catalogue files, maybe some are good, others perhaps not so. Any ideas on how to fix this, and should I do this before or after the transition.

    Apologies for the long question but I'd like to get this right from the root upwards.

     

     

    dj_paige
    dj_paige
    Legend
    August 8, 2026

    Fixing this problem is probably best done before you make the move. The fix, in my opinion, is to have one catalog for all of your photos. That’s ALL of your photos, 100%, every single one. (Yes, there are exceptions to this rule buy you haven’t mentioned anything remotely close to what I consider a valid exception). Once you have that one catalog, you then must make use of the organizing tools in LrC, I strongly recommend that your primary organizing tool is keywords, and other metadata as needed (captions, titles, GPS locations, collections and smart collections). Folders become just a storage location, not an organizing tool.

    Now suppose you fix the problem (and please be 100% sure you have done it properly — no wait, make that 200% sure) and this new catalog works before you do the move, now you have 1 catalog to move to the internal drive. If you do the fix after the move (which should work as well), you will have to move all of your catalog files to the internal drive.

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