Moving photos from external drive to laptops main drive?

[cristphoto1]

I have the Lightroom/Photoshop subscription on my laptop. Currently all my photos are on an external hard drive.  I would like to move just my favorite photos (maybe 1000) directly to the laptops drive and disconnect the external drive. I'd only reconnect it when looking for less popular photos.  Is there a way to do this easily?  Would my edits and keywords still be usable? Thanks for any help. 

[cristphoto1]

I dug a bit and see one way is to use the export command and export the selected files as a catalog. Just pick a target folder on the laptop and go.  Has anyone done this method?  My intention is to not have to connect the USB drive unless necessary.  I think the existing catalog would remain intact when I reconnect the USB drive.  

[dj_paige]

"I dug a bit and see one way is to use the export command and export the selected files as a catalog. Just pick a target folder on the laptop and go. Has anyone done this method?"

The drawback to this is that now you have two catalogs, and so I would not recommend this at all. Also, if you update a photo in this new catalog (edit it or add metadata to it), these changes will not be reflected when you open the original catalog. Better to move the photos in such a way that they remain in a single catalog, as explained in the link from @WobertC.

[Rob_Cullen]

In Lightroom-Classic: Just Drag & Drop selected images or folders from the External Drive to the Internal drive in the Classic Folder panel!

No need for Exporting/Importing catalogs!

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/move-photos-another-hard-drive-leaving-catalog/

This blog article shows two methods-

For ALL photos & folders- Option 1

For selected photos only- Option 2.