How to split one large catalog into parts?

[tymbe]

Looking for the best way reorganize images by splitting one large Lightroom catalog with 40k images into several, smaller catalogs.

[johnarobb]

There is also a file size issue.   Not so much the file itself but what happens when you have a large catalog.   Any global action you want to take on that catalog like backing it up, recovering it or repairing it takes longer.   There is also a risk mitigation strategy of having small blocks of your work in any given catalog.   

Everyone has their own reasons for doing what they do.   Learn from best practices and add what you can to your individual workflow.   

[merrillier78181659]

I end up splitting my Catalog every year. I take a lot of photos and since going to the Nikon D850 with the larger file sizes plus shooting in Raw and often having Tif files as well as the JPG and video files my catalog always seems to slow down my computer after a year or so of files around 12k to 15k of them per year.

In fact tonight I just split the 2021 files away from the latest catalog leaving 2020 in its own catalog.

I always sort my files by year which makes it easier to do this.

These were easy instructions to follow and worked well but it did take somewhere between 1 to 2 hours to process and finalise but all worked perfectly.

http://asktimgrey.com/2020/04/24/dividing-to-two-catalogs/#:~:text=Tim's%20Quick%20Answer%3A%20You%2....

[dj_paige]

I doubt its the number of photos in the catalog or the size of these photos in the catalog that slows things down. There are probably dozens of reasons why Lightroom Classic slows down, and number of photos in the catalog is not in the top 25.

You don't say what parts of Lightroom Classic are slow, and without that, we can't pinpoint the reason.

[merrillier78181659]

When I have it open and am working on photos this time around my mouse was the first to start to behave erratically, slow to respond everytime I opened Lightroom Classic. I restarted computer a few times, checked mouse driver, took out the wiress dongle a few times for the mouse and restarted it. Processing was also starting to slow down in Lightroom.
I have had a problem with the computer slowing down with lightroom classic open once I get close to 20k in images basically every year and it is always solved by starting a new Catalog. Task Manager shows Lightroom Classic power usage goes very high and things start to slow down yet when I start a new Catalog and transferred over the 3.5k in photos from this year everything is back to normal. If I open up last years Catalog now minus the 3.5k photos/videos that have been removed leaving it with 12.5k it is working beautifully as well.

For me this has always been the case once I start nearing 20k in images. Even though I have since increased the RAM, the size of the SSD drive and my Catalogs are on the SSD drive, my cache is set at 50gb.

The only other thing I have done is unlink the Flickr plugin in last years Catalog and authorised it in the new one, whether that is the cause for the slowdown it may be possible as I always use both Lightroom Classic and the flickr plugin although I regularly remove the albums from the Flickr section in Lightroom once I have finished with uploads to them.

[Roenel25829493ne50]

I recently had to do this. The main reason was for user login. I wanted to split up my personal and commercial workflow. I ended up creating a new login for windows specifially for focusing on my business and only wanted to see photos I took for my business so I wouldn't get distracted with my personal photos. I had already split things up with folders, but again the distraction. I used both NVME, 2.5 SSD, and the old spinners. Yes, the cache helps but I did notice an improvement when I split up the catalogs as my images are stored on the HDD. Hopefully I'll see more of an improvement when I implement raid config for my HDDs. Thanks to the OP and the person who responded with a good solution!

[dj_paige]

I recently had to do this. The main reason was for user login. I wanted to split up my personal and commercial workflow. 

There are valid reasons to have multiple catalogs. This is a valid reason.

Yes, the cache helps but I did notice an improvement when I split up the catalogs as my images are stored on the HDD. 

There should be little or no performance improvements when you split catalogs. (Exception: time to perform a backup will be faster). But since you didn't say WHAT improved, it's really hard to know what you mean.

Hopefully I'll see more of an improvement when I implement raid config for my HDDs. Thanks to the OP and the person who responded with a good solution!

I don't know enough about RAID to understand what the benefit is. I'm guessing these will be faster than your existing HDDs. Generally, disk speed doesn't affect anything in Lightroom Classic except the Library Module. If you are having performance problems in the Develop Module, faster disk speed will not help, other than by a trivial amount that you will never notice.