Catalog's Folders Depends On an External Hard Drive

[Eden98BC]

Hi,

I'm editing my photos which are depending on an external hard drive.

I want to be able to edit my photos also when my external hard drive is not connected to the computer.

As you can see in the attached file, all of my folders are under "Extreme SSD" and not local storage (I know the folders are "missing", it's because I unplugged my external hard drive).

I have to mention that each folder is very heavy so I cannot copy them to my desktop.

What should I do?

Thanks 🙂

[dj_paige · Accepted solution]

Are you talking about Lightroom Classic?

If so, create Smart Previews for the photos of interest, and then you can edit them without the external HD attached.

[SeanMcCormack · Accepted solution]

Yep, as @dj_paige says, create Smart Previews. These are stored with the catalog file, so assuming this is on an attached hard drive (including the startup drive), you can edit the files without the SSD. There are limits though, like you can't do full export etc.