How to duplicate folders on another external hard drive in Lightroom Classic

[ViktoryiaVinnikava]

Hi all,

I have my photography files stored in NAS drive. And I can't take it with me on 2 month vacation.

I would like to copy somehow several folders to external drive with me to work on during summer.

How can I do it in Lightroom catalog without messing it up? 

I don't want to MOVE the files - as (God forbid) anything might happen to that drive and I don't want a chance of losing my files. 

Is there any solution to keep current catalog with 2 copies of the same files (temporary) and then somehow replace new edited files to my NAS after I return back?

Anyone has a system for these sort of situations?

Thanks!

[Jao vdL]

Easiest is to copy the files in finder to the other drive and then in Lightroom Classic right (or control) click on the folder and do a "update folder location" and point it to the new drive. When you get back, you can do that again and reconnect it to the old location. 

[ViktoryiaVinnikava]

Thanks, that's what I thought of doing, thought there is way to do it in Lightroom.

[Jao vdL]

You can only move images between storage locations inside Lightroom, not copy them so copying in finder is the solution you need. You could in principle also do export as originals from Lightroom Classic and then reconnect the folder to the location you exported but copying in finder will be far faster.

[JohanElzenga]

Why do you want to take files with you on vacation? To work on them in Lightroom? If so, consider rendering smart previews for these files. If you have a smart preview for an image, then you can edit that image even if the original is offline. The only thing you can't do is send the image to Photoshop, or do something that produces a new file, such as Denoise.

[ViktoryiaVinnikava]

Yes, I want to work on them and I would need to export them to JPGs/Tiffs. Maybe to print as well. 

[JohanElzenga]

You can export from a smart preview too, but obviously the biggest size will be the smart preview size in that case (2560 pixels).

[ViktoryiaVinnikava]

Thanks, Johan. I contribute to stocks so 2560 pixels wont do, probably ill just copy them via finder, seems easiest way.