Moving LR catalogue from external hard drive to internal computer hard drive

Report · Feb 01, 2019

What is the best way to move a LR catalogue from an external hard drive to a computer's internal hard drive?

Also, can I drag and drop a back up of a LR catalog to a 2nd external hard drive? Or do I need to drag and drop the original catalog?

I'm trying to come up with a good LR organization strategy. tell me if you foresee any problems with this method

1. Keep main working LR catalogue on computer's internal hard drive within the pictures folder

2. Save the pictures folder to iCloud Drive so that iCloud drive is storing this information as well

3. Regularly back up the internal hard drive catalogue to Drop Box and a separate external hard drive

Report · Feb 01, 2019

Hello,

LR does not care where your catalog sits, copy it wherever you want. I would be careful with the same catalog being in two places as you may loose track where you made the last changes. You can do most editing work on just the catalog if you have smart previews generated before.

Saving picture folders to a cloud or any other backup is good. Again, do not over do it. One well organized backup is better than 2 or 3 half baked ones.

Report · Feb 01, 2019

One way

Lightroom Quick Tips - Episode 75: Moving the Catalog & Library - YouTube

and

How to move your lightroom catalog - YouTube

also mentioned in

How to create and manage catalogs in Photoshop Lightroom Classic CC

Report · Feb 01, 2019

violentchalupa wrote
Also, can I drag and drop a back up of a LR catalog to a 2nd external hard drive? Or do I need to drag and drop the original catalog?

We have discussed this in your other thread. Yes, you can do this, but its a terrible way to perform backups. Backups must be regular and automated, and should be done via the Lightroom feature that makes catalog backups, and the backups must be stored on a different physical disk than the working catalog.

Report · Feb 01, 2019

Thanks for your help! I agree, using the backup feature in light room across all drives seems like the way to go.