Mac OS 15.5 -- moving LR catalog and directory from my /pictures folder to my /documents folder

Question

I've been using LR Classic for years now. When I set it up, I established my 'home' for it on my Mac's Pictures folder. Macintosh HD / users / <my name> / pictures.

At this folder, I have a Lightroom folder, which contains my lightroom catalogs, backups, and old lightroom catalogs folders.

My default folder for imports is Macintosh HD / users / <my name> / pictures / Photos_LR.

I back up locally with Time Machine, and I back up via two cloud services - iCloud (plenty of storage available), and Backblaze.

Since iCloud backups only support the Destop and Documents folders (not Pictures, downloads, etc), it makes sense that I should migrate my LR catalog(s) and image library to a subfolder under /Documents, so I have a local backup and a cloud-based backup.

So ... is this as simple as a drag and drop in Finder? Or are there layers of settings that also need to be modified?

Withing LRC, I can see that my catalog is where I know it to be - users/<my name>/pictures/lightroom. However, this is a read-only field.

I'd like to my my catalogs and image collection as efficiently as possible. Any guidance from LRC veterans?

JohanElzenga · Accepted Answer

@MonorailGold

Keeping catalog in a folder synched with iCloud or any other cloud service, can be a dangerous thing to do. Plenty of reports of this causing slowness, and plenty of reports of this causing catalog to become corrupted. I would advise you to move the catalog file out of iCloud, to a folder where it is not synched with the cloud.

Most reports come from OneDrive, where Microsoft seems to have no option to ensure that a local copy remains. That is indeed a recipe for disaster. If a permanent local copy is ensured, then catalog corruption should not become an issue (slow down may indeed occur). Obviously, making a catalog backup after each edit session is highly advisable.

JohanElzenga · Answer

It is indeed as easy as drag and drop. In order of Lightroom to know the new location of the catalog, double-click the catalog file after you did the move. Lightroom will launch with the catalog and as a result will know where it is. Do make sure that iCloud will always keep a local copy of all the catalog files, however. Using Lightroom with an online-only catalog will fail and may corrupt the catalog. If iCloud does not offer this option, then my advice is not to do this.

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