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I use two computers - a laptop and a desktop - both running windows 10 - and have Lightroom Classic on both. I keep my photos on an external drive which I plug into one or the other machine. But, nothing is in sync and I am really frustrated, particularly with the keyword list which is all organized and in excellent shape when I use my laptop, and totally scrambled when I use my desktop. How can I ensure I have one keyword list for both machines and how to I bring the desktop into sync with the laptop keyword list? Would welcome your help.
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Hi Laurie,
Not sure if it's possible to sync the keywords list (it might be in a file somewhere that you can sync).
What I do to have the same lists in Lightroom and Bridge (I assume the same would work between your two LrC installations) is to export the list I have in LrC (my main one) and import it into Bridge. Whenever I add new keywords from within Bridge, they are loaded into Lightroom upon reading the pics' metadata. Every know and then I do some reorganizing of those keywords in Lightroom and then export/import into Bridge again to keep the same hierarchy on both sides.
Maybe someone will suggest a better option, but this works quite well for me and with little effort.
Hope that helps,
Michael
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Michael Niessen - Photographer, photo-editor, educator ([moderator deleted the URL from the signature. Kindly note that URLs in the signature may be considered as spam])
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The commands Metadata > Export Keywords and Import Keywords export and import your keywords as text files. But these have limited utility in "syncing" keywords between catalogs. You can't delete keywords by editing the lists, and you can't effectively rearrange the hierarchy. If you have People > John in one catalog and John in another, and you export/import keyword lists, you'll end up with People > John and John in the catalog.
It's much better to maintain a single catalog wherever possible.
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You could use just one catalog, kept on the external drive. Then your laptop and desktop would always be in sync.
On your desktop LR, do Catalog Settings > General > Show to open File Explorer on the desktop catalog folder. Then use File Explorer to copy that folder to the external drive. Finally, in File Explorer, double click the <catalog>.lrcat file on the external drive to open it in LR.
Rename the copies of the catalog folder on your desktop and laptop to <catalog>.save, so you don't accidentally open them. (Don't delete them until you're really sure that all is working right.)