Export library to external hard drive

Forum|Forum|6 months ago
July 22, 2025
2 replies
251 views

Hello,

I am trying to export my entire Lightroom library (40,000 items, approximately 1 TB of data) to an external hard drive to have a physical backup.

When I attempt this, the export fails due to an issue called "Unable to download the original/proxy file," which coincides with running out of storage space on my PC. It seems that my PC is creating cache/proxy files (I'm not entirely sure of the difference) while Lightroom is exporting to my hard drive, causing the export to fail when the internal drive runs out of space. However, in Lightroom's settings, I have limited the cache to 10 GB, which is well within my available space.

How can I simply back up all these media files? Ideally, I want to keep the edited versions of the photos rather than the originals.

Windows

Ian Lyons

Community Expert

It's not clear which version of Lightroom that you're using. Is it Lightroom Classic or Lightroom Desktop (Cloud focused version)?

JohanElzenga

Community Expert

Good catch @Ian Lyons . Reading this again sounds like this is Lightroom, not Lightroom Classic. Lightroom needs to download the originals before it can export them, and the location for downloaded images is specified in the preferences. If there is not enough space for that on the internal drive, then you must first specify another drive for the originals.

-- Johan W. Elzenga

E

Etienne_Baranger8310Author

New Participant

Thanks, I will try to specify the other hard drive. Yes I'm in Lightroom, sorry.

JohanElzenga

Community Expert

You can much more simply backup your images by using a separate backup utility. Or use the 'copy' function in your OS. As the edits are stored in the catalog, not in the images, there are no 'edited' images, just original images. Backup the catalog as well (to the same external drive) for this reason. Catalog backups can/should be made from Lightroom Classic.

-- Johan W. Elzenga

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