Participant

Question

Transferring catalog to a new computer

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
February 9, 2019
2 replies
586 views

Hello,

I bought a new laptop recently but I was reluctant to bring over all of my previous work due to the space issues.

I have now decided to keep only the photos I'm currently working on on my laptop and keep the rest on a hard drive i have at home so i can just connect that if I've ever to get at my old photos.

I have all of the photos on my new laptop moved over to the hard drive and everything works flawlessly from what i can see.

I then transferred all of my imaged from my old laptop in the same manor to the hard drive but when I connected it to lightroom the images showed up but with no smart previews or editing done on them etc.
This was before i transferred over my catalog.

I then transferred the Catalog and attempted to import that to my new laptop to no avail.

I'm now moving my backups and Preview folders to the external hard drive but once this is done I have no idea what to do form there.

Can anybody offer me some advice?

This topic has been closed for replies.

dj_paige

Legend

Complete instructions, step-by-step

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/how-move-lightroom-to-new-computer/

Please note, there is no importing of photos in this procedure.

D

damianc13121259Author

Participant

I have done all of these steps but the issue is I began a new catalog when i got the new laptop, Im not sure how to link these that i can access the old laptop images from the new laptop when i connect my hard drive.

kentdesign

Community Expert

When. you "transferred " your catalog - how did you do it?

Basically you need to copy the Lightroom Folder from your old laptop to your new laptop. By default that Lightroom folder is in the Pictures folder on a Mac, My pictures on a PC .

Wherever you have the Lightroom folder on your old laptop, look and see what is in it.

Basically there is the (your catalog name).lrcat file

Plus these 3 files:

(your catalog name) Helper.lrdata

(your catalog name) Previews.lrdata

(your catalog name)Smart Previews.lrdata

Note: If you never made Smart Previews in your old catalog then that file may not be there.

Make sure you copy all these files from your old laptop to your new laptop.

Then launch Lightroom by double clicking:- (your catalog name).lrcat file.

You catalog on the new laptop should look just like the one on the old catalog. And if you see ?'s or !'s on photos, you simply need to plug in the external drive with the photos on it, and then click one of the ?'s marks and "relink" it to the photo file - along with all the others.

On the other hand, if you already have made a new catalog on your new laptop and want to continue with that catalog because you have done a ton of work already, then go back to the old laptop.

Then launch the old'laptop's Lightroom Catalog and then select, File>Export as catalog. Export that catalog without the negatives and then copy that exported catalog to the new laptop.

Then launch Lightroom on the new laptop and tell it to import (File >import from another catalog) that catalog that you just exported from the old laptop and copied to the new laptop.

Hope that makes sense.

JP Hess

Inspiring

If your images are still in the same folder structure on the new computer as they were on the old computer, and the hard drive has the same name or same letter designation as it had on the old computer, then all that should be necessary is for you to locate that catalog that you moved to the new laptop and double-click on it. Lightroom should start and should find everything in place and you should be ready to go.

If the hard drive has a new name, or the images are organized differently, then this article might help.

Adobe Lightroom - Find moved or missing files and folders

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded