Moving Catalogs between laptop and desktop

[Kramminn]

Hi There,

Sometimes I don't always feel like sitting at home or in front of my computer to edit photos. Sometimes I want to move to the couch or work remotely. 

I originally started working on my set of pictures off my desktop, its where I always start with dumping my photos on to my local HD then when I am finished I move it to my external 6T HD. 

I was under the impression that If I just move my catalog onto an external and then plug it in on my laptop I can resume editing because the photos are not actually stored in the catalog but more so data. Today when I tested this out and opened LR I got a message saying the files could not be found - am I missing something? Why is my pictures not showing up when I have moved the catalog?

Can someone provide me with a walkthrough of how I can work off the two devices?

Thanks 

[AxelMatt · Accepted solution]

Here you'll find a article with many good informations:

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/how-to-lightroom-catalog-multiple-computers/

[BiJeiTi_Ph]

The comcept is correct but you need to pay attention to some point:
- The 6T Hdd need to have a fixed "letter" in order to maintain the link. This is an option of the operating system. In this way Lightroom recognize correctly the path of the photo.
- Use a fast external disk for the catalog: eg. SSD with USB3 or eSata connection

- If you want to continue editing the photo in the second PC without the 6TD storage, you need to create the Smart Preview for the picture that you want to edit. Othervise Lightroom doesn't find the pictures and permit only to navigate in lybrary module.

[Kramminn]

What do you mean by a fixed letter?

[BiJeiTi_Ph]

As reported below from "WobertC" use a fixed letter for the lettern name of the external drive.

[Rob_Cullen]

When you swap an external drive from one computer to another it may change its Letter name. eg. E: > F:

Naming an external drive as P: or Q: or Z: will almost definitely prevent it changing letter. So you can swap a USB drive with a Catalog and referenced photo files from one computer to another. (the Catalog needs to be linked to the Drive letter name P: Q: etc)

A forum thread that discusses the "fixed letter" for external drive names-

https://community.adobe.com/t5/Lightroom-Classic/Text-editing-Lightroom-Catalog-file-Change-drive-pa...