Lightroom 6 - Changing computers from Windows to an M1 Mac

I've been using Lightroom 3 and then upgraded to 6 for several years. It's time to upgrade my computer from Windows to Mac (with M1 chip). I store my photos on an external hard disk and back them up with another external hard disk.

 

I am not computer savvy and would appreciate advice on how to go about it:

By @E Ho

If you want my advice: upgrade to a Windows machine and stay with Windows 10 as long as that is supported. If you want to change to the Lightroom Classic subscription based latest version, you can do so and change to a Mac M1 silicon.

For your record: The image files are "as is" stored somewhere on your hard disk. The edits you do are stored in the Lightroom database (extension .lrcat). To move your Lightroom data from one computer to a different one, you need to move both, your original files and the database. After moving, you will probably need to reconnect the database with the files, when the access path has changed (which will be the case by changing the OS).

You can also download Parallels ans install windows on you M1 Mac. Then you can reinstall LR6 on your mac ( running parallels ) as you would do on any other windows based machine. It works, I have done it.

The only caveat is that Parallels is not free, you need to purchase a license for it.

Your Lightroom 6 cannot be installed on an M1 Mac. You need to subscribe to the Adobe Photography Plan, which includes Lightroom Classic (current version is 10.3), which is the direct successor to your Lightroom 6 and can use all of the work in your Lightroom 6 catalog.

If you do subscribe and get Lightroom Classic 10.3, you transfer via these instructions: 

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/how-move-lightroom-to-new-computer/

Hi, 

We're sorry but Lightroom 6 is not compatible with the M1 Macs. Please check: https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/kb/macos-big-sur-compatibility.html

You can use the latest version of Lightroom Classic (10.3) on the M1 Macs as it supports the M1 Macs natively. Being a successor to Lightroom 6, Lightroom Classic has the same editing workflow & the same user interface. The images you add to the catalog remain on your local storage & are not uploaded to the cloud storage unless you add them to a collection & enable Sync for those collections. 

To transfer your files to the Mac, you can move the Lightroom catalog to an external hard drive along with the images & open the catalog in Lightroom Classic on the M1 Mac. The application would upgrade catalog to be compatible with the latest version & you can continue using it.

Please let us know if you have any other questions.

Regards,

Nikunj