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Gregory25556071f00h
Inspiring
October 20, 2025
Question

Question about importing a new LrC catalog into an existing catalog

  • October 20, 2025
  • 1 reply
  • 99 views

I keep my photos on an external SSD (call it Prime) and my LrC catalog on my desktop internal SSD. I recently ran into a problem of wanting to add ~22,000 photos from several SD cards to my Prime, but there was not enough capacity left. I had to use Adobe Bridge to do initial culling for each SD card and could then get the remaining files (~13,000) to fit on Prime, so that I could import them into LrC.

 

Shortly after, I found myself facing an unusual (for me) situation and was forced, for the first time, to deal with using the same catalog, and Prime, from two different computers. Without doing the proper amount of research (I was in a big hurry), I simply copied the entire Lightroom folder from my desktop to another exteranl SSD (call it Catalog) and could simply move the two SSD (Prime and Catalog from one system to the other. Worked just fine. I should say that what I actually did was copied the Lightroom folder from my desktop to Catalog, then used Prime and Catalog from a laptop for several days, then used Prime and Catalog on my desktop up until today.

 

I once again decided to put the catalog back on my internal SSD. This time I took the time to do (possibly) the proper research. I started by looking at the entire Lightroom folders on both my desktop and Catalog. Without going into all the detail, which I don't really understand anyway, the only thing I needed to do was copy the .lrcat file from Catalog to my desktop. In fact, only thing that puzzles me is that while LrC was pointed at Catalog, I did a backup two times while using my desktop, and both backups ended up on my desktop rather than Catalog. To me that seems a bit strange, but I can see a rationale. 

 

Part of my research drug up information about exporting and importing catalogs. It got me to thinking about my intial Prime over-capacity problem, because in a few weeks I'll be faced with the same problem again. I think it would be possible to create a new (empty?) catalog on an external SSD, copy a large number of photos to the same SSD, and then point LrC at that new catalog (whether running on a desktop or laptop) and then import the new photos into the new catalog, work with the photos, and then eventually import the new catalog into the old catalog, merging the two. 

 

Sounds like something that is feasible. Does anyone know? I will likely try it out in the near future. Further, I wonder if I could export the old catalog, including my hierarchal keyword set, to an external SSD, then use that to import the new photos, thus not worrying about having to recreate keywords. 

 

All advice appreciated!

1 reply

kentdesign
Community Expert
kentdesignCommunity Expert
Community Expert
October 20, 2025

Hello, sounds like you have several questions or am I misreading? And when you say you "copied" your entire Lightroom folder to another SSD, are you referring to the folder with .lrcat file and others or are you referring to a folder with your images themselves?  I too have the Lightroom Catalog and its necessary accompanying files ( .lrcat,  and multiple .lrdata files) on my internal Drive. ANd I keep my image files, those that came from the camera memory card, on an external SSD. I have done this since the very first Lightroom version I had which was 2.  If your external SSD was too full to copy all your images when you wanted to put them on it, you could have just copied the image files to another external SSD. And then opening your normal LR Catalog on your internal drive, you would have just had to import and designated the other external SSD. Thus keeping that one catalog with everything from both External SSD's  Moving or copying the catalog from one computer to another is best done by "exporting" and "importing," in my experience. There are other files that should come along with the .lrcat file, like your keywords. Here is a great link to  read through regarding moving catalogs: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/how-move-lightroom-to-new-computer/ Hope this answer helps, and if not, I must have misunderstood your question!!!

 

G
Gregory25556071f00hAuthor
Inspiring
October 21, 2025

You did catch me mixing in several questions! Your response made me realize I posted too quickly (the wife was anxoius to get to our social engagement). There really are two fundamental issues, and you somewhat adddressed one of them.

 

The first issue it about dealing with disk capacity. In the situation I mentioned, my photo shoot produce ~22,000 RAW photos, somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 TB. In retrospect, per your response, I could have initially put the photos on a new SSD and not messed with the catalog at all. Then after culling, with ~1,000 photos left, I could have simply moved the "good" ones to the Prime SSD, and of course, told LrC about the new location. Great solution!

 

The other issue is using two different computers. I've seen hints that this is common among "tens of thousands" (I paraphrase) of professionals. So, I just need to do some more research on the details, which may actually be in this community, or somewhere else, if I can find the right search terms or AI engine. 

 

Thanks!

kentdesign
Community Expert
kentdesignCommunity Expert
Community Expert
October 21, 2025

HI, Im happy I did understand the first part correctly!  The second part, using two computers to access images with the same LR catalog is logical. I have both a desktop and a laptop, and my images are stored on external SSDs.  If my desktop computer were to go down or if for any reason and I need to work on images using my laptop or the other computer, the simplest solution I have found is to store a backup of my catalog on the external SSD with my image files. To make this back up of the catalog, I set up LR to create a back up each time I quit LR. That creates a file called "Name of my catalog".zip It is the most up to date catalog I have just used. If I unzip that file, it contains two files, catalog.lrcat and catalog.lrcat-data.  It does not contain the other 4 files that are in my normal catalog that is on my internal drive. Those other 4 files are  CATALOG HELPER.lrdata, PREVIEWS.lrdata, SMART PREVIEWS.lrdata, and CATALOG SYNC,lrdata.  So ideally I would have a copy of those already on the external SSD or on the other computer .  If you regularly switch between two computers and physically move the external ssds from one to the other to work on images, there is probably a better way. I still recommend exporting the catalog to another location and copying it to the other computer, as decribed in Lightroom Queen's article, and doing so regularly!  

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