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Move Lightroom 6.14 catalog to alternate drive without updating

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
June 7, 2022
4 replies
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I could really use some help, on what should be a trivial issue.

I'm trying to move my lightroom 6.14 catalog to an alternate drive. I've followed the Adobe instructions;

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/help/create-catalogs.html#copy_or_move_a_catalog

When I launch from the moved Lightroom Catalog.lrcat, I get the following window

Following this will put me into a subscription for Lightroom, for which I have no interest.

What's the proper way to move the Lightroom 6 catalog without invoking an upgrade?

Windows

This topic has been closed for replies.

Correct answer richardplondon

It appears that the "xxxxxxx.lrcat" file type has been associated with a newer Lightroom Classic software version, hence when you double-click on any Catalog file it will be that version which starts up and attempts to open this - then prompting a new Catalog to be converted alongside (under a new, different name). That new Catalog will then be openable by the newer software, and show all the same images and edits, under whatever Process Version those images had used btw. But regardless, your LR6 Catalog would still remain in place too, 100% unaffected.

I suggest your better course - presuming you want to access this moved LR6 Catalog using LR6: start the LR6 software which will by default attempt to open its last-used catalog. If that succeeds, in File menu choose instead "Open Another Catalog" - or similar words to that same effect - and browse to the moved Catalog file. If that does not succeed you will be prompted for which Catalog you want to open (or else to make a new empty one) and you would in that case again choose to open a pre-existing Catalog, browsing the appropriate drive to find that.

JP Hess

Inspiring

Lightroom will rebuild the previews, but you can save that rebuild time if you move the previews to the same folder where you move the catalog. It's up to you.

Zman01950Author

Participant

Thanks Jim. I appreciate your help.

Regards,

Zach

R

richardplondon

Correct answer

Community Expert

It appears that the "xxxxxxx.lrcat" file type has been associated with a newer Lightroom Classic software version, hence when you double-click on any Catalog file it will be that version which starts up and attempts to open this - then prompting a new Catalog to be converted alongside (under a new, different name). That new Catalog will then be openable by the newer software, and show all the same images and edits, under whatever Process Version those images had used btw. But regardless, your LR6 Catalog would still remain in place too, 100% unaffected.

I suggest your better course - presuming you want to access this moved LR6 Catalog using LR6: start the LR6 software which will by default attempt to open its last-used catalog. If that succeeds, in File menu choose instead "Open Another Catalog" - or similar words to that same effect - and browse to the moved Catalog file. If that does not succeed you will be prompted for which Catalog you want to open (or else to make a new empty one) and you would in that case again choose to open a pre-existing Catalog, browsing the appropriate drive to find that.

Zman01950Author

Participant

Thank you JimHess, dj_paige, and richardplondon for your helpful replies.

A bit more on my situation: I’m staying with LR 6, because it has all the features I need, without spending $120/year or more. My photos are all on an external RAID drive (90,000 images, 6 TB drive). I’m using Lightroom on my Lenovo Carbon X1 Extreme, remotely, with great success.

I’m using Catalog previews (25GB) and Smart Previews (60GB) in my workflow. These have become a significant portion of my laptop working drive. As such, I installed a second SDD (2TB) and would like to migrate all LR 6 files, except my image files to this 2TB SSD.

Richardplondon – Your "Open Another Catalog" solution worked beautifully and I am now migrated to the second SDD as desired.

Quick follow-up question; Will LR rebuild my previews in this new location or do I need to migrate them somehow?

Thanks again all for your help.

Regards,

Zach

dj_paige

Legend

You clearly have Lightroom Classic 11 installed. Why would you not want to upgrade your Lr 6 catalog?

But to answer your question:

I'm trying to move my lightroom 6.14 catalog to an alternate drive.

You go into your operating system and move the catalog file to the alternate drive.

JP Hess

Inspiring

First of all, why do you want to move the catalog to a different drive? The catalog does not contain the images. It would probably (in my opinion) be a better choice to move the images because they are probably taking up more room. At least that is the case in my situation. That message would seem to indicate that you have installed Lightroom Classic. Is that not the case? Really, all that is necessary is for you to move the catalog to whatever drive you want it to be placed on and then double-click on it in its new location. Don't try to move it from within Lightroom. It isn't necessary.

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