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paweiss
Participant
July 1, 2023
Answered

difficulty between 2 computers

  • July 1, 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 279 views

Greetings,

I've been using LrC on my 2016 MacBook pro with no issues for quite some time.  I've always kept the catalog on my laptop's hard drive and all my photos on a removable 2GB Samsung T7 SSD.  

I decided that I'd like to try to edit some photos on my PC desktop (running Windows 11).

I installed CC and LrC to the desktop and copied all the LR files to an "LR catalog" folder on the Samsung T7 that houses all my photos from that catalog.  

I have no issues opening that catalog in LrC on my MacBook, however when I open the same catalog on the PC, lightroom does not locate the photos, nor does it label the drive as T7 like it does on the mac.

I have photos in a number of folders on the T7 drive. 

If I help LR locate one of the folders, that folder will appear and the drive will become properly labeled in my LR folders area, however all the other folders with "?" disappear and I can no longer direct LR to them.  

Any suggestions or should I just stick with my MacBook?

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer paweiss

Update - problem solved.

I moved the catalog from my macbook to the same external SSD as the photos.   The photos and the catalog need to be in one folder rather than in the root directory of the drive.  Initially I had the catalog in the root directory and photos in a folder and that didn't work well. Once I moved the catalog to the folder with the photos, it allowed LR to find the photos quickly.

2 replies

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paweissAuthorCorrect answer
Participant
August 10, 2023

Update - problem solved.

I moved the catalog from my macbook to the same external SSD as the photos.   The photos and the catalog need to be in one folder rather than in the root directory of the drive.  Initially I had the catalog in the root directory and photos in a folder and that didn't work well. Once I moved the catalog to the folder with the photos, it allowed LR to find the photos quickly.

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paweissAuthor
Participant
July 1, 2023

Update - I suspect from all that I'm reading that it has to do with how the PC and Mac label drives differently and the LrC on the PC just isn't locating it properly.  Becasue the catalog was created on the Mac, is there a way to tell the PC to label the disk like the Mac does?

dj_paige
dj_paige
Legend
July 1, 2023

The way forward is to have the Windows catalog link to the drive/folders as Windows recognizes them. You can follow the instructions here (see Figures 3 and 4)

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paweissAuthor
Participant
July 2, 2023

That should work.  Right now I have all my photos organized by year, each year with its own folder in the root directory of the drive. I think I just need to place all of those "year folders" in a master photographs folder. 

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