Lightroom Library.lrlibrary is large - can it be moved?

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
March 10, 2025
1 reply
275 views

Hello,

Im hoping somone can help me. I have a huge lightroom file on my mac and its making it hard to upload other images to my computer. Its 230gb. I have copied the file and pasted it to an external hard drive and then deleted the original file that is on my mac but when i click on the backup file on my hard rive to open lighroom none of my catalougues or pictures are on lightroom anymore. basically i want to know how i can back up this huge file tha is taking up all this space on my and put it on my hard drive but still have my catalogues intact when i open the file from my hard drive. Any ideas? Thanks in advance

macOS

A

Aleke

Community Manager

Hi @seanw96048087! 👋 Welcome to the community!

Could you let us know which version of Lightroom you're using? Just to clarify, are you referring to the catalog .lrcat file? Also, do you see a question mark icon in your Lightroom photos? Thanks a lot!

Cheers, Alek

*(If you mention me with an @, like @Aleke, I’ll get a notification and can respond faster.)*

seanw96048087Author

Participant

Hi,

Thanks for your reply. Im using the newest version of lightroom, not lightroom classic. i thought i had posted in the correct group but maybe not.

It is the - Lightroom Library.lrlibrary file

I am familiar with locating files in lightroom classic when the question mark appears like you mention but i cannot see any option for the other version of lightroom

Thanks

JohanElzenga

Community Expert

That file is from Lightroom desktop, not Lightroom Classic, so I moved this thread to the appropriate forum (you posted in the Lightroom Classic forum). If the Lightroom library is so huge, then most likely you have enabled the option to store a local copy of the original images. In the preferences you can define a different location for those copies. You cannot move the Lightroom Library.library itself to another location however. That is hardwired to be in your Pictures folder.

-- Johan W. Elzenga

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