Sync LR Catalog between 2 computers but not master files

[gb3arts]

I have LR5 on my main iMac desktop system and on my Macbook Air.

The iMac is connected to a disk array which stores my master photo files.

I would like to sync this catalog (iMac master) with the Macbook Air and only be looking at previews on the Air,

so that I can choose selects on the road.

I would come back to the iMac to work with the master files.

Is this possible and easy? I'm not interested in having my files live in a cloud or cloud based sharing or anything like that.

Just Catalog with previews on the Air which sync to Catalog on the iMac.

Thank you,

Greg

[Michael J. Hoffman]

endusone wrote:

I wound up using BTSync which is now called Resilio to sync the catalog and smart previews folder to my Surface Book. Unfortunately, most of the cloud services force you to have all your files in one sub-directory. This caused two problems for me. 1.) It would wind up syncing the main previews folder,

In my video, I cover how to prevent syncing of the regular previews using the selective sync feature of Dropbox. Other cloud services have similar features. So, this is a non-issue.

You don't want to sync full previews, the size of the folder tree would be prohibitive.

What I do is to work with smart previews when I'm mobile, but if I know I'm going to want to work on originals, I bring along an external disk with a clone of my originals folder from the desktop machine. It's 2Gb (could be larger but I am an aggressive house cleaner). I use Microsoft SyncToy to keep the folder tree on the external disk in sync with the internal disk on the desktop.

This requires an extra step of "Locate missing folder..." when I plug in the drive, and the same again when I get back to the desktop, but it allows me to work effectively with my full size files (and with videos as well, which do not have smart previews).

Mike

[Jao vdL]

In my opinion the least dangerous way (i.e. possible catalog corruption if you forget to quit out of one machine or open the other before cloud syncing has occurred) and the cheapest and fastest way is to use a big USB stick or SSD drive (they are tiny and superfast - you can get 256GB USB 3 sticks for $50!) to store the catalog and previews and simply move that between machines. 

[ellanosv]

I solved how to synchronize two lightroom catalogs on (of course) two different macs, method is here: A couple of things I noticed: How to synchronize two Lightroom catalogs , questions, comments and/or suggestions are welcomed.

[endusone]

OK!  A few more days of testing and I have a solution!

Export/Import Catalog - Works well and imports edits.  Not perfect for me because I want the photoshop files to sit next to the raw files in the same folder without having to move them manually.  I wouldn't be surprised if someone told me Lightroom was doing this and I'm just a big dummy, but either way.

Resilio - Resilio works extremely well but you really have to give it time to sync when you first set it up.  It will seem like its synced fairly soon, even if you open LR, but it's not.  Once you get that initial sync done, though, it really works very well.

My solution: I shrank the partition on my laptop and created a new partition (X:) which corresponds to the drive on my desktop (and server for that matter) where the files live.  I configured Resilio to share the files on the drive.  The server pulls down all of the files.  I configured the laptop to selectively sync files, and went through and enabled sync on all the necessary catalog files.

From there, I can work on whatever has smart previews generated for it.  If I want to work on the full raw files, I just go to the folder or folder tree that contains them on the laptop, right click, and tell it to sync to this device.  I do my edits, generate my tiffs from photoshop if need be, etc.  The files get synced to both the server and the desktop.  When I want to remove the files I just tell resilio to remove the files from this device and they will still be on the server and desktop.  If I want to sync them again I just reenable.

Need to be careful that things finish syncing before opening LR on the desktop, but I am going to be doing a lot more editing on the go.  I should be able to import files from cards on the go and have them sync back to my desktop and server too, obviously with some limitations based on how fast my connection is.

[markp71750915]

Hi

if any one is interested I made a little script that you can use to sync the catalog between two pc's.

Minimal changes are required to get yours working.

Just to be safe make a backup of your catalog before you attempt to run it.

It is Microsoft OS only.

Just extract to your external, read the small manual I made "SETUP HELP.txt", edit the top peace of "LIGHTROOM SYNC.BAT"  and you should be in business.

Let me know what you think.

Dropbox - catalog backup proc.zip

[ManiacJoe]

Nice script.

You might toss in a check for the .lock file with the catalog. If it exists, Lightroom did not shutdown correctly. If there are resulting catalog problems, you may not want to overwrite the old backup until any potential problems are resolved.