Transferring Lightroom classic catalog to my new Macbook Pro?

[Tom_brown3]

Hi all! Last year before getting back into photography after a break due to all my gear's theft, I bought a Macbook air. Long story short, since getting the computer, I got a new set of photography gear and am finding the Macbook air woefully underpowered. I decided to upgrade to a new Silicone Macbook Pro. (which won't arrive for a few weeks)

My question is, do I need to transfer my lightroom photos and catalog names separately to the new computer, or If I restore my new computer from a  Time Machine backup, will that take care of moving everything? 

I am paranoid about losing a year's worth of photos and edits and want to make sure I am doing things the right way!

I really appreciate any help you can provide.

[JP Hess]

It all depends on what is included in the Time Machine backup. When all is said and done the catalog and images need to be on the new computer, with the images in the same file/folder organization they were in on the old computer.

[Tom_brown3]

I haven't used Time Machine in a long time, as everything backs up to I cloud. I just ordered an external hard drive because I live rurally with REALLY slow internet, and it would take forever to restore a new computer from the cloud.  Will it give me the option of Including Lightroom catalogs and photos when I set up tie Machine for the first time? I plan to back up this computer once the new one arrives and immediately plug it into the new Macbook pro.

[Eric Pec]

Hi,

Time machine should restore your photos and catalogs. But, for an other level of safety, I would warmly recommend to save your catalogs and photos on an external disk.

If time machine works, it is ok . But if for any reason it does not work, you are able to restore your work manually
In any case, You could use this external disk to regularly backup your images and catalog and store it another place( family, friends…) so as to become immune to devastating events like fire.


Best Regards
Eric Pecquerie
Sent from Eric’iMac 2018

[Tom_brown3]

Could you steer me towards a concise video/webpage that goes over the process of transferring everything over to an external drive? I bought an SSD specifically for my lightroom photos, as my long-term workflow goal is to work off an external drive to speed things up since my computer won't have most of its space taken up by photos. I have a Seagate rugged SSD 1TB drive that I bought for this purpose, but I have been nervous about transferring because all the videos I have found have been confusing, and I don't want to mess anything up!  

[dj_paige]

This is provided in my post further down in this thread.

[dj_paige]

You need to copy the catalog file, the photos and (possibly) your presets to the new computer. Backups are not really necessary for this purpose (but of course, you should have recent backups of everything anyway).

Step by step instructions: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/how-move-lightroom-to-new-computer/

Follow the instructions EXACTLY. Do not skip steps (unless they clearly do not apply, such as moving from Windows to Mac). Do not make up your own steps. Do not import photos on the new computer.

[Jao vdL]

The simplest and by far fastest way to do this is to put the Air in target disk mode and restoring from that in the migration assistant to the new MBP when it arrives. You just need a USB-C cable (assuming that your old air is a USB-c compatible one). Here is a quick google link: https://mbsdirect.com/mbs-blog/article-need-to-move-lots-of-data-between-macs-try-target-disk-mode

Always make sure you have a backup before you do this but it should work. The migration assistant should actually give you instructions on how to do it. Good USB-c cables can be had for $10 or so on amazon. The cable that comes with your power adaptor will not work as it is not a data capable cable.