Is it possible to have one catalog to sync everything to your mobile device by keeping alll catalo

[TimoH.]

Hey,
i was wondering if it ist possible to have one lightroom catalog to sync all my pictures to my mobile device, but also keeping every single catalog.
Every year, sometimes also every half year i start a new catalog to keep things smooth and organized. The Problem with that is, that i can only sync one of those catlogs at the time with my phone.
Is it possible to have the single catalogs to editbut also one big catalog were the edited pictures can sync to my phone?

Thanks for the help

[john beardsworth]

Yes, but why not just have one big catalogue? Then, as well as syncing, you will be able to search for photos in, and not fragment control of your picture collection.

[TimoH.]

Bacause i take about 15.000-20.000 Pictures a year and even though i delet alot it would be still a massive katalog wich by that size will get slower

[john beardsworth]

Many people use a single catalogue with many more photos than that, without slowdowns, and just think of the advantages of keeping control of all your photos in one place. For example, imagine you want to get all your best pictures with a certain keyword like "cat". While you are looking through the catalogue for the first half of 2024, then the second half of 2023.... the person with one catalogue has already created a smart collection for that keyword and rating greater than 2 and is enjoying their favourite cat pics.

Working with one big (synced) catalogue would be my recommendation, and you could bring all the half-year catalogues into it by using File > Import from Another Catalog. Archive those half-year catalogues.

But if you really want to continue to use them, and also sync all the photos, then you would again use File > Import from Another Catalog to bring them into the synced catalogue. You are then going to have to be careful about making adjustments or changing metadata, and where you make them:

• If you make them in a mobile app, they will sync into the big synced catalogue - but not into the half year catalogues. What now?
• If you make them in the big synced catalogue they sync to mobile but not into the half year catalogues
• If you make them in a half-year catalogue, they don't go to the synced catalogue or mobile until you do something (repeat the Import from Another Catalog, or use xmp saving and reading), so making changes in the half year catalogues is making work for yourself.

Those are just a few of the complications and inefficiencies, and just obvious ones.

What I'd suggest is following my one catalogue recommendation. Import all those half year catalogues and see how well it works for you.

[TimoH.]

Thanks a lot for the help

[TimoH.]

today i took the time to put them all togethger but sadly if I use the method you descirbed by "File > Import from Another Catalog" not all Pictures from the other catalog are show/ are importet. Even in the Import modul there are a lot misssing eventhough when i open the old catalog everything is there
You maybe have an Idea why this happens? 

[john beardsworth]

You maybe have an Idea why this happens?

By @TimoH.

No, and Import from Another Catalog is very reliable.

You need to investigate some details, so you can understand what is happening. So choose specific pictures that you think are not being imported, and search very carefully for them in the big catalogue. I would not be surprised if you discovered they were in fact in the catalogue, because a common problem of using multiple catalogues is that photos are in more than one. In cases when it finds a photo is already in the "receiving" catalogue, Import from Another Catalog will update that photo with information from the "imported" catalogue, if it is newer. But you are going to have to review specific photos.

[Jao vdL · Accepted solution]

I have 130k images in my main catalog. I shoot between 5 and 10k images a year. It is no slower than when I would have a few thousand. Works just fine. Most images are stored on a NAS except for the last few months that I am actively editing. I can access all my images from anywhere in the world by VPN'ing in to my home network. Definitely the way to go if you shoot a lot of images.

[TimoH.]

Thank you 🙂

[TimoH.]

How do i do it