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O
Octaviano
Participant
June 18, 2019
Answered

storing lightroom previews in different location than catalog

  • June 18, 2019
  • 2 replies
  • 2613 views

In order for work to be reasonably portable (e.g. syncing via google drive) you need to store previews and catalogs in different locations, since the previews are so much larger and there is no need to transport those.

How can you store previews and catalogs in different locations? !

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer dj_paige

    You can use something called a symbolic link to store the previews elsewhere (but this will cause a speed loss). Search the internet for details.

    2 replies

    dj_paige
    dj_paigeCorrect answer
    Legend
    June 19, 2019

    You can use something called a symbolic link to store the previews elsewhere (but this will cause a speed loss). Search the internet for details.

    O
    OctavianoAuthor
    Participant
    June 19, 2019

    That'll work, particularly since macs. Since it's catalog by catalog, it'll take a bit to do for all my existing catalogs. And I'll have to do it with both macs - or however many more machines I'd care to sync.

    Sounding more and more like not worrying about it until Google Backup and Sync's exclusion by extension gets implemented by folder - or for that matter, works at all for files - will be the most pragmatic route.

    JP Hess
    JP Hess
    Inspiring
    June 18, 2019

    The short answer is that you can't. But you don't need to transfer the previews. If previews aren't there then Lightroom will automatically generate them when needed. So if you transfer the images and the catalog, and open the catalog, the previews will be created automatically.

    O
    OctavianoAuthor
    Participant
    June 18, 2019

    I realize it re-constitutes the previews. The whole point of having them is so that it doesn't need to re-hydrate them every time you fire up a catalog. But if they're in the same folder as their corresponding catalog, it's kinda tough not to have them sync. (Tried filtering them out in google drive and that's not working since the .lrdata is a folder and it's not digging exclusion of .lrprev files).

    If you work on two machines, you really don't need to carry them over (especially across google drive, involving network traffic and storage capacity on your cloud drive) - but you do want to keep your catalogs updated. When switching machines, the cost of having the previews re-created is more reasonable than the excess syncing. But you can't avoid it since you can't but the previews elsewhere (say, outside your Google Drive directory, while the catalogs are in that directory).

    JP Hess
    JP Hess
    Inspiring
    June 18, 2019

    Previews are designed to be in the same folder as the catalog. Previews are generated on an "as needed" basis. That's the way Lightroom is designed to function. That way, it isn't necessary to include the previews folder when sharing images catalogs between computers or with other users. You can't split the catalog and the previews, putting them in separate folders or on separate hard drives. It isn't necessary because the creation of the previews is quick and done on an individual image basis as needed when the image is displayed.

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