Moving files best practice?

Please see my suggestions at the below link concering mpving image files and folders from outside of LrC.

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic/how-do-i-move-my-pictures-to-external-hard-drive/m-p/5029125#M12054

Part 2 — Updating Folder Location from these instructions: http://www.computer-darkroom.com/lr2_find_folder/find-folder.htm

Do not import, you will loose all edits.

At this point, move them into proper folders, using folder structure the were originally in, the in LrC update the folder location.

Generally speaking, you will find copying many images with the file manager simply works better than moving them. Only for small numbers, e.g. a few images found to have have been misfiled, will carrying out moves within the LrC Folders panel be appropriate IMO. A bulk copy is quicker in practice but also safer in principle than a bulk move is.

And subsequently re-addressing one whole parent folder with all its contents, is much more efficient than having LrC readdress thousands of individual images one at a time as it transfers them each to its new storage location.

If you have done the copy as a bulk operation using Finder, as a Copy, the LrC Catalog will continue referring successfully to the starting images where they are. If that was done as a Move then it will not be able to continue to refer to those... no matter, either way. You can readdress the whole lot in a single go provided one key parent folder has been transferred, with identical folder structure inside. Once this readdressing is known to be successful, (if this was a copy) you can clean out the unneeded, and now un-used, images from the starting location.

No such bulk operation should IMO be contemplated though, unless both a separate files backup and a separate catalog backup are safely in place.