I purchased a new computer and am trying to move all of my lightroom data. Is there not a simple way to do this? Is it too much to ask for Adobe to design a one buttom solution that would allow all data to exported to a large HD (or better yet, the cloud) and then a one button import on the other end. I'm about to trash everything and rebuild from scratch out of frustration. I use Lightroom Classic and the cloud based version, but at the moment, not liking them.
No exporting, no importing. How's that for simple?
Copy the catalog file to the new computer. Copy the photos to the new computer, without rearranging them, without changing the folder hierarchy. How's that for simple?
Double click on the catalog file, then re-link the parent folder where the photos are located on the new computer. See figure 4 here.
Do not add extra steps. Do not think you can do it differently. Do not make it more complicated than I described above.
Adding ... since the OP is using a Windows computer, if for example, his photos were on the D drive on the old computer, and they are copied to the exact same location on the D drive on the new computer, and the copying of the photos is done exactly as I described it, using the same parent folder name and path on each computer, then you don't even have to re-link the photos. It is unbelievably simple (great job by Adobe to make this simple, by the way). I have done this on (I think) 3 new computers in the 12+ years I have been using Lightroom 2-6/Lightroom Classic. Never once did I have a problem with Lightroom/Lightroom Classic becuase I transferred it to a new computer.
dj is exactly right. This is very simple. Just copy over the catalog and the images and you're done. It is also possible to use the export as catalog feature (which is a one click thing) and export the entire catalog including all the images and edits to an external disk indeed. Just copy that over from your external disk to your new computer and double click on the catalog and you're done. That will work too but is not as simple as just copying the images and the catalog.
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