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Nerdio
Participant
July 20, 2025
Answered

Lightroom Catalogue migration to Mac

  • July 20, 2025
  • 1 reply
  • 172 views

I have done a bad thing I know. I acted in haste and should have known better. Hopefully someobody can help me resolve the situation.

 

I have been using LrC on a WIndows machine for many years and have moved to a Mac. I copied my Pictures folder over from the Windows PC to an external drive on my Mac. I have a 'Lightroom Catalog' folder where the Catalog file lives, and a 'Lightroom' folder with subfolders for each year and my images. These were literally copied to my Mac external drive.

 

I can open the Catalog file and view my images and work normally, so all was well I thought. Yesterday though I realised that the few images I have imported since moving to my Mac are not appearing in my Catalog 'tree'. This because they are being stored in the Pictures/2025 folder on my Mac internal storage. My Catalog seems to be accessing old files from my external drive as I would expect/hope and saving new files to my internal storage, but possibly not in my Catalog.

I have never been very disciplined or educated about the correct use of LrC Catalogs so I don't know what to do to fix this. Any advice, in simple terms, would be greatly appreciated. (I will use this as a lesson to be more educated and respectful of the LrC Catalog 😞 ).

Thank you

Correct answer JohanElzenga

Files are not stored in the catalog. The catalog is a database with references to the files. Your new files were copied to the Pictures folder on your hard drive. You can move them to the Pictures folder on the external drive by using drag and drop in the Lightroom Classic folder panel. https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/help/photos.html 

 

When you import new pictures, look carefully at the Destination panel in the import dialog. That is where you selected the wrong Pictures folder.

 

1 reply

JohanElzenga
Community Expert
JohanElzengaCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
July 20, 2025

Files are not stored in the catalog. The catalog is a database with references to the files. Your new files were copied to the Pictures folder on your hard drive. You can move them to the Pictures folder on the external drive by using drag and drop in the Lightroom Classic folder panel. https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/help/photos.html 

 

When you import new pictures, look carefully at the Destination panel in the import dialog. That is where you selected the wrong Pictures folder.

 

-- Johan W. Elzenga
N
NerdioAuthor
Participant
July 20, 2025

Thank you a much simpler solution than I might have expected. Everything is sorted now. (I would have set the 'Import to directory' years ago on my PC and just forgot that I had done it.

Thank you

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