Upgrade Question

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
December 27, 2022
2 replies
554 views

Upgrading from Lightroom 5 (I own) to a subscription Lightroom. Will my photos in 5 migrate to the subscription Lightroom or will I have to move manually. Also will Lightroom 5 still exist as its own program or will that be merged into the new subscription program?

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Michael J. Hoffman

Community Expert

It depends how you choose to migrate.

Lightroom Classic (in today's terminology) is the direct descendant of Lightroom 5, and uses the same catalog and module-based approach, along with the same strategy for storing your photos locally in the place you choose. If you install Lightroom Classic, and open your LR5 Catalog file, LR Classic will create a copy and update it to the latest database format, and all your photos will be in their same locations. It should be very straightforward.

If you choose to switch to Lightroom (the cloud based version, just called plain "Lightroom" in today's terminology), it will take a bit of work. Lightroom stores all your original photos in the cloud, and the catalog and interface are somewhat different. I'd recommend first upgrading to Lightroom Classic, then if you want to move to Lightroom, follow the instructions here:

Migrate photos and videos from Lightroom Classic to Lightroom

Michael J. Hoffman

Community Expert

Oh, and I forgot to mention that when Lightroom Classic makes its catalog copy and upgrades it, the original catalog from LR5 is not modified, so you could still open it with LR5 as long as that application runs on your computer. But once you upgrade and everything looks good, there should be no need to go back.

Also, the new LR Classic catalog is not backwards compatible with LR5, so once you start adding to the new catalog, you won't be able to see the new photos and edits in LR5.