How to move the files in a catalog to a different drive?

[MarkAurelius]

Hi,

I have been generating a catalog of photos thinking they were on an external drive, but it turns out that they are going onto my macbook. How can I move the files to the external drive, and have the catalog look for them in the new location?

[99jon]

I find the safest way to move folders is to drag your folder using Finder to the external hard drive. That will make a copy of the folder and files. Then in LR you right-click (or control-click) on the folder name in the left-hand panel and choose update folder location. Navigate to the external drive location and LR will re-link everything automatically. The beauty of this method is that you can ensure everything is OK before deleting the folder from your internal drive.

See this link – Part 2 & 3

http://www.computer-darkroom.com/lr2_find_folder/find-folder.htm

[Tony_See]

Move the files using your OS then relink / Sync folder in Lightroom

Adobe Lightroom - Find moved or missing files and folders

[AxelMatt]

The easiest way is to move the file in Lightroom.

Here you'll find infos how to do:

How to Move Photos and Folders in Lightroom – Pretty Presets for Lightroom

Moving Files in Lightroom - YouTube

How to manage photos within folders in Lightroom Classic

[MarkAurelius]

Thanks, but those all seem to be within the same drive. When I click on the Folders + button I lose access to the ones on the main hard drive.

[johnrellis · Accepted solution]

Thanks, but those all seem to be within the same drive. When I click on the Folders + button I lose access to the ones on the main hard drive.

I strongly recommend you use the method posted above by 99jon -- move the folders using Finder, not LR, and then relink the new location of the folders to the catalog.  See option one in this authoritative Lightroom Queen article: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/move-photos-another-hard-drive-leaving-catalog/

As the article mentions, moving large numbers of folders is safer with Finder / File Explorer -- there have been infrequent but persistent reports of LR losing files when it moves folders:

Lightroom Classic: Deletes files when moving folders | Photoshop Family Customer Community

Lightroom: Moving files, resulted in deleting the files | Photoshop Family Customer Community

While one particular bug reported in these threads has been identified and fixed, many of us believe that there are other bugs still remaining.

[MarkAurelius]

Thanks. That Lightroom Queen seems like a great resource.

[AxelMatt]

Ok. Thanks for the information. I've used this function always within the same drive. I'll try to test.

[MarkAurelius]

I'm just getting used to the left-hand side of lightroom. It's a bit overwhelming. I now realise that it is showing active drives there. Because the parent drives were hidden I had assumed that they represented a structure in LR's own database.

So, when I could see 2 drives in that left-hand panel, I was able to drag a folder from one drive to another within lightroom.