Can I back up my Elements Organizer catalog to OneDrive?

Candice,

Do you expect to share only picture files on OneDrive, or to share a catalog and the full pictures library between several computers with the same version of Elements installed?

- Sharing only picture files means you 'Export' or copy files to the OneDrive folder on your C: drive, and OneDrive is in charge of synchronizing to the cloud. No problem for sharing picture on any device.

- Sharing a library and catalog between two computers with the same PSE? No easy and practical solution, even with very small catalogs. The nature of web storing means very slow transfer and synch processes even if you have enough space. The way catalogs reference picture files location means that you must have catalog copies on both computers (that's possible) and that you'll have to 'reconnect' all files since you are working on different C: drives (the OneDrive process synchs from the cloud to each C: drive).

What you can do reallistically

- Store a full backup with the C:\OneDrive destination. OneDrive will synch with the Cloud. That will update the backup folder on the C: drive of the other computer and it will be possible to restore to custom location on the second computer. Imagine how long that would need for my about 500 GB of catalog folder! You might prefer to use an external USB drive as the backup media.

- Store only the catalog folder: good backup idea and very safe, but that does not save pictures and that's not for sharing.

- Create a mini secondary catalog and library directly on the OneDrive folder. I am using Dropbox, it's the same. From my big library, I have decided to manage selected copies of only the files I want to be available everywhere. High rating, no raw files, up to date, new events... something between 5 to 10 thousands jpegs max. From the organizer, after writing metadata to files, I export selected files or albums to a folder tree on the C: \DropBox folder. All images are available to any device after syching, which is reasonably fast.

From each computer with PSE, I create independently a new catalog and import all from that folder. Synching is fast enough. My tags are available in those new catalogs for fast searches. When switching computers, after the sync is ok, I have to check if new files have been added or removed. A quick check for missing files, then either the watched folder service or a global import to index new files.

Since the catalogs are local and not synched, they can even be of different PSE versions, PSE14 and PSE15 for instance.

I am happy with that way of sharing.