Editing images on an external hard drive

[Lorne22566145jfdj]

Hi.  I'm looking at taking advantage of the new-ish feature allowing us to edit our photos from a local drive instead of the cloud.

A question about this: I'd like to edit images from an external hard drive.  If I were to make edits to some of the images on the external hard drive, and then disconnect it from my computer, would those edits be preserved in some way?

[Nadeem28230335k4xr]

Yes.  If you use local browsing on Lightroom (not classic), any ratings, flags you add, or edits you make will be stored in an xmp file saved alongside the original image.

[Rob_Cullen]

To add to the post by @Nadeem28230335k4xr -

You only see a sidecar XMP file with proprietary raw files (NEF, CR3, RAF, ARW, etc)

With rendered RGB files, the XMP metadata is written into the file (JPG, TIF, PSD). ie. no sidecar XMP.

Also the edits are not visible in other Apps such as Windows Photos, or other simple photo browsers. You will only see your Lr edits within Lightroom, or if you want a file with the edits 'burned in' then you still need to 'Share' or 'Export' a derivative file to the hard-drive.