Keywords

Thank you for the replies!  I keep all my photos on an external drive and a few months ago I changed out the drive.  I copied all of the files to the new external drive keeping the same structure as the old drive and then I think I pointed Lightroom to the new location but the keywords were gone on most of the files.  I may have imported some of the larger folders again, I don't remember for sure.  Now I'm in the process of going back and adding keyhwords again.  How do you suggest I do it next time I have to change the drive?

You use the menu command Metadata > Save Metadata to File or Ctrl S (Win). There is also a Catalog Setting to do this automatically.

If the original is a raw file, this creates a xmp sidecar file, which other xmp-aware programs can read. But non xmp-aware programs can't.

If it's not a raw file, the keywords are saved directly in the file and may be readable in other applications.

LrC is non-destructive and does not add keywords to the original file - they are kept in the catalog and also in a xmp sidecar file if selected to do so in the preferences.

However, keywords can be added during the export.