Lr Newbie-please help

[janelles41295824]

will exporting a catalog from Lightroom to an external hard drive remove them from my hard drive (Mac)?  Worried about space and speed.  Have been moving them but still seeing them in Lr folder/s.  Do I need to highlight the catalog (after moving to ext hd), click on command, option, shift, delete and choose delete from disk in order to physically take them off my hd?  Will it break the chain or link to the images I've moved?

[D.A.R · Accepted solution]

When you export a catalog you are creating a new catalog with a subset of images. You have the option to include the negative files which will duplicate the image files and send them with the catalog. This could cause problems.

I am making assumption that what you are in fact wanting to do is move the images from one hard drive to another.

If that is the case:

In Lightrooms Library module locate the Folders Panel.

Plug in your external hard drive.

If the drive does not show up in the Folders Panel you will need to let Lightroom locate it. Click the + symbol to the right of the word Folders and select Add Folder...

navigate to a folder on the external drive or create a new folder on the external drive and click Choose.

Select any images you want to move to the external drive and simply drag them to the folder you chose in the external drive using the Folders Panel.

If you want to move an entire folder you can click on it and drag it.

You will be presented with a warning stating that the files will actually be moved on the system. This is what you want.

Essentially anything you do in the Folders Panel will happen in the finder, whether it be deleting or moving.

Using this method you have not created anew catalog - because you don't need to - and Lightroom can still show you where your images are even when you unplug that external drive. No link is broken

Hope that helps.

[dj_paige]

Exporting a catalog to save space on one disk is not the way to do this. In fact, it's a very inefficient and leaves a lot to be desired.

The better method is to move some or all of your photos to the external HD, and tell Lightroom where they are, so in essense, you still have all photos imported into the same catalog, you can perform any tasks in Lightroom with the photos on an external HD, it's like nothing has changed (except the photos are on the external disk now). The method is as follows:

1. Using your operating system, COPY (not MOVE) the photos to the external HD, keeping the folder hierarchy the same
2. In Lightroom, go to the Folder Panel in the LIbrary Module and right-click on the top-level (parent) folder, and select Update Folder Location, and point to the new location of the top-level (parent) folder on the external HD
3. When you are sure all of the above steps have been done properly and Lightroom is functioning properly, you can delete the photos from the internal HD.

This entire procedure is described in a lot more detail, with screen captures, in "Part 2 — Updating Folder Location" of this document: Adobe Lightroom - Find moved or missing files and folders

WARNING: Do not use the method of moving folders inside of Lightroom. There are too many reports of a nasty bug causing your photos to disappear. See: Re: Transferring photos to an external hard drive, photos lost