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Custom_Training
Participant
April 18, 2013
Answered

How do I move my pictures to external hard drive?

  • April 18, 2013
  • 6 replies
  • 151607 views

I need to create space on my laptop hard drive. How do I move my pictures to an external harddrive? Terrified I will losse them or get the dreaded ...? Help!

      This topic has been closed for replies.
      Correct answer web-weaver

      There is no need to be terriefied. The "dreaded "?" is not that bad.

      The best way to go about this is:

      1) In Lr / Grid View / Folders panel (left side) put all your image folders under one parent folder. If this is already the case you can skip this step. To do this, just create a new folder and name it descriptively. Then drag-and-drop your image folders on top of this newly created folder. This will make all image folders sub-folders under the one parent folder.

      2) Close Lr. In Mac Finder / Win Explorer move the newly created parent folder (together wil all its sub-folders) to you external drive. This is important: Do not rename any folders or change the folder structure at this point.

      3) Re-open Lr. In the Folders panel you will see the |dreaded`"?" - do not panic! Right-click (i.e. click with the right - as opposed to left - button of you rmouse) he parent folder that you created earlier and now shows the question mark and select <Update Folder Location>. Navigate to the location of the parent folder on your external drive and select it. Lr will find all the sub-folders on its own.

      That's all there is to it.

      PS: Actually the text is <Find missing Folder> not <Update Folder Location>. But the procedure is the same.

      Message was edited by: web-weaver - PS added

      6 replies

      W
      westlight
      Participating Frequently
      March 31, 2016

      I've already "COPIED" all of my images, 3 tbs worth, to a new 5 tb drive using Windows Explorer. I may have missed this in the discussion but is there a way to now have LR recognize that new drive as the now primary drive? Some way to redirect the Catalog/Library?

      I've watched the video by Julianne's video. LR CC recognizes the drive and I created a folder using LR but in the dropdown the "Photo Folders" where all of my images are stored which I copied to that drive does not show up. When I click on "Import" all of the images are there which I already knew. I'm assuming...or at least hoping that I don't have to re-import everything.

      Thanks for any clarification!

      dj_paige
      dj_paige
      Legend
      March 31, 2016

      westlight wrote:

      I've already "COPIED" all of my images, 3 tbs worth, to a new 5 tb drive using Windows Explorer. I may have missed this in the discussion but is there a way to now have LR recognize that new drive as the now primary drive? Some way to redirect the Catalog/Library?

      I've watched the video by Julianne's video. LR CC recognizes the drive and I created a folder using LR but in the dropdown the "Photo Folders" where all of my images are stored which I copied to that drive does not show up. When I click on "Import" all of the images are there which I already knew. I'm assuming...or at least hoping that I don't have to re-import everything.

      Thanks for any clarification!

      If you have COPIED and not MOVED the photos, then you redirect Lightroom using the instructions in Part 2 entitled "Updating Folder Location" of this document: Adobe Lightroom - Find moved or missing files and folders

      There is no Importing of photos involved. Importing photos is a completely wrong thing to do here.

      There is no need to create a folder using Lightroom.

      --

      Paige

      W
      westlight
      Participating Frequently
      March 31, 2016

      Thanks for the quick reply and link. Could you please clarify something before I click on "Merge"?

      The original "Photo Folder" contains many sub-folders and they're on Drive: K

      Drive M now has the same folder and sub-folders which I had Copied via Explorer..

      Using Windows, I would right click on that "Photo Folders" on the original drive and select the "Update Folder Location" correct? Then point it to the "Photo Folder" on the new drive M, correct?

      The reason I'm asking is that when I follow those steps a dialog box opens stating "The selected folder or one of its subfolders is already in Lightroom... Do you want to combine these folders?" and I didn't want to click "Merge" button until I know this was right.

      I tried doing this with one of the subfolders and did not get that message but that subfolder dissapeared from the original drive which surprised me. Of course the folder and images are still on the original drive, they just do not appear in LR.

      Thanks again!

      robertakayne
      robertakayne
      Participating Frequently
      October 18, 2015

      Hello everyone.  I tried the method of copying my files in Windows Explorer from my drive to an external hard drive, and now in the new hard drive, Lightroom is not displaying any of the flags that I had marked on the old drive.  Does anyone have any suggestions or can anyone help?

      Todd Shaner
      Todd Shaner
      Legend
      October 18, 2015

      Did you use 'Update Folder Location' to reconnect the image files already in the LR catalog to those on the external drive?

      Huskergirl51
      Huskergirl51
      Participant
      July 20, 2015

      I need super detailed explanation of how to move all my pictures from LR to my external HD, What I've read here is over my head.  I have a Mac and am still not super familiar with that either, I know, I'm a mess!!!  My Mac HD is full!!  I have a Seagate external HD.  Please help!!

      Todd Shaner
      Todd Shaner
      Legend
      July 21, 2015

      Excellent video on the procedure by Julianne Kost:

      http://tv.adobe.com/watch/adobe-evangelists-julieanne-kost/how-to-copy-files-to-an-external-hard-drive-in-lightroom/

      It's really not that hard, but please follow my suggestion in reply #13. This will help to insure that the picture folders are properly copied to the new external drive so they are a mirror-image of each other:

      Re: How do I move my pictures to external hard drive?

        E
        elosonegro
        Known Participant
        June 21, 2015

        I don't want to move the whole folder, just the images I doubt I will ever work with again.  I've watched 3 of Julianne's video's but it won't drag and drop my selected images.  And I'm not sure at all how to select those files and move them through the OS unless export will do it then delete.  Any comments?????

        Todd Shaner
        Todd Shaner
        Legend
        June 21, 2015

        Where are you trying to move the files (separate folder, external drive, etc.)? Why are you moving them rather than using LR's Rating, Keyword, and Collections tools to catalog and organize you image files? Give us more information and perhaps we can provide some solutions. Simply "moving" image files because you may not edit them in the future is a poor choice.

        elosonegro wrote:

        And I'm not sure at all how to select those files and move them through the OS unless export will do it then delete.

        Moving selected random files from outside LR disconnects them from the LR database and will cause you to lose all of your edits, ratings, keywords, etc. That's why it is suggested to move whole folders since the one (1) folder is easily reconnected from inside LR.

        E
        elosonegro
        Known Participant
        June 22, 2015

        These aren't random files.  I'm choosing to keep my higher rated photos on my main hard drive.  I want to move unrated photos from many different folders catalogued in LR to a back up hard drive.

        C
        CASpyr
        Participating Frequently
        April 19, 2013

        You can certainly do as web-weaver suggests, or you could move them from within LR so that LR can keep track of where things go. That saves you the step of updating the folder location after moving the folder outside of LR. You can simply drag the folder(s) in the left hand panel of the library module from where they are to your external drive.

          web-weaver
          web-weaver
          Inspiring
          April 19, 2013

          CASpyr,

          You wrote "or you could move them from within LR".

          Yes, that is certainly possible, provided that the external hard drive is displayed in the Folders panel. It will not be displayed if no images are on it, or if no images have been imported from it.

          Also, there are some reports that Lr looses images when moving image folders. These "occurrences" are few and seemingly random. Even Adobe acknowledges this with it's warning about moving images in Lr.

          Therefore, to be prudent, I would reduce moving images and image folders in Lr to the minimum possible.

            Todd Shaner
            Todd Shaner
            Legend
            July 28, 2014

            RE: Reports of lost images when moving folders in Lr

             

            Such reports were made from time to time since Lr2. Sure, many/most of them are due to "operator error". But some of them could never be explained. I have it in my memory that on an Adobe webpage it has/had been recommended to use the OS (Mac Finder / Win Explorer) when moving image folders - but I cannot find this page, and maybe my memory is faulty.

             

            But it is interesting that Victoria Bampton in her manual on moving image folders to another hard drive also recommends strongly to move images and/or folders using Win Explorer / mac Finder. See here: http://members.lightroomqueen.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/1166/0/how-do-i-move-only-my-photos-to-another-hard-drive-leaving-the-catalog-where-it-is

             

            One of the latest reports of lost images / folders is on this thread: http://forums.adobe.com/message/5230435#5230435 

             

            But I was not aware of the answer of Adobe staff member Julie Kmoch of April 12, 2013 (post # 27 in this thread).

            She writes: "To update this thread on what we pursued internally...the short story is we haven't found anything that would make files disappear while moving a folder. We had four engineers review the code invoked when moving folders, threw fake errors at it to test the error handling, dug for any possible reports of issues with the OS calls we're making, and had two of our quality engineers abuse it moving tens of thousands of files across volumes with every odd case we could think of. If we had found something that would actually makes files disappear, that would be a stop-the-presses kind of event, so we took it very seriously. But we haven't been able to find anything."

             

            So it seems that this problem is not an issue anymore. 

            I apologize for my misleading statement that Adobe would warn against moving images in Lr.


            web-weaver wrote:

            But I was not aware of the answer of Adobe staff member Julie Kmoch of April 12, 2013 (post # 27 in this thread).

            If we had found something that would actually makes files disappear, that would be a stop-the-presses kind of event, so we took it very seriously. But we haven't been able to find anything."

            So it seems that this problem is not an issue anymore.

            I apologize for my misleading statement that Adobe would warn against moving images in Lr.

            Having worked in OEM computer system design for 45-years I've seen numerous "unexplained" hardware and software issues. In many cases it was not possible to replicate the customer's issue in a controlled environment using a similar system (i.e. Adobe Labs). Did Adobe engineers test what happens if the primary AC power is lost momentarily, AC voltage drops during a Brownout, static electric discharge (i.e. carpet), soft memory errors, etc? These are NOT LR issues, but will cause you to lose image files nonetheless!

            When moving your entire image folders to a new drive location use Windows File Explorer or Mac OS X Finder with Copy and Paste. If something goes wrong during the process all your original image files remain at their current LR location. Copy and Paste to the new drive at the highest top-level folder, such as 'Pictures' or whatever top-level folder name(s) you are currently using. When the Copy and Paste has completed you can verify that all image files were moved successfully. Here's how:

            Windows

            Right-click on the top-level folder at the original location and select 'Properties. Repeat at the top-folder on the new drive and compare the Size, Size On Disk, # Files, # Folders. They should be IDENTICAL if everything was moved properly:

            Mac OS X

            OS X makes it a little harder. See these articles:

            http://www.cnet.com/news/how-to-count-items-in-a-folder-in-os-x/

            OS X Mavericks: View file and folder information

            Make sure to check both top-level folder size (bytes) and total file count.

            If all folders were moved successfully reconnect them at the new drive location from inside LR. To do this please follow web-weavers step 3 in his post #1 above, no sense repeating it here. Once you have verified that all pictures are now visible and reconnected inside LR you can delete the image folders at the original drive location. I would advise keeping them until you've worked on the images for a while to insure there are no issues with the new drive. Make sure to backup your image files and catalog(s) on a regular basis to a "separate" 3rd external hard drive.

            It may take a few extra minutes, but if the above procedure saves you from losing even one (1) irreplaceable image file it's worth the time! LR Rule #5 - Enjoy!

              web-weaver
              web-weaverCorrect answer
              Inspiring
              April 18, 2013

              There is no need to be terriefied. The "dreaded "?" is not that bad.

              The best way to go about this is:

              1) In Lr / Grid View / Folders panel (left side) put all your image folders under one parent folder. If this is already the case you can skip this step. To do this, just create a new folder and name it descriptively. Then drag-and-drop your image folders on top of this newly created folder. This will make all image folders sub-folders under the one parent folder.

              2) Close Lr. In Mac Finder / Win Explorer move the newly created parent folder (together wil all its sub-folders) to you external drive. This is important: Do not rename any folders or change the folder structure at this point.

              3) Re-open Lr. In the Folders panel you will see the |dreaded`"?" - do not panic! Right-click (i.e. click with the right - as opposed to left - button of you rmouse) he parent folder that you created earlier and now shows the question mark and select <Update Folder Location>. Navigate to the location of the parent folder on your external drive and select it. Lr will find all the sub-folders on its own.

              That's all there is to it.

              PS: Actually the text is <Find missing Folder> not <Update Folder Location>. But the procedure is the same.

              Message was edited by: web-weaver - PS added

                Wesmack
                Wesmack
                Participant
                July 28, 2014

                Thank you, had to move hard drive data to a different drive and you saved me a lot of time.  Thank you.

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